Tag Archives: County Wicklow

In the Highest Perfection



Avondale, County Wicklow is now irrevocably associated with its late-19th century owner, Charles Stewart Parnell – and anyone who visits the place cannot escape seeing his image across the house and grounds. Less well-known, however, and certainly not as well remembered, is the man who was responsible both for building the house and developing the estate that Parnell was eventually to inherit: Samuel Hayes. The latter was one of those extraordinary polymaths produced in the 18th century, acting among other roles as a lawyer, politician, amateur architect and antiquarian, and ardent dendrologist. In addition, during a relatively short life (he was only 52 when he died), Hayes served as sheriff and joint governor of County Wicklow, was a colonel in the Wicklow Foresters and subsequently lieutenant-colonel in the Wicklow militia in addition to being a governor of the Foundling Hospital and Workhouse and a commissioner of stamps. And, it is worth mentioning, he was a member of the Royal Irish Academy’s committee of antiquities and in 1792 became a member of the Dublin Society committee responsible for choosing a suitable spot on which to establish a Botanic Garden (eventually, the site in Glasnevin on the outskirts of Dublin was selected). 





Samuel Hayes was born in 1743, the son of John Hayes who lived on a 4,500 acre estate in Wicklow called Hayesville: after inheriting the place following his father’s death, he changed the name to Avondale, since the river Avonmore runs through the grounds. As well as its associations with Parnell, Avondale is renowned for the outstanding collection of trees found throughout the grounds, the origin of which is due to Hayes. In 1768  he was awarded a gold medal by the (Royal) Dublin Society – of which he would be an active member over several decades, sitting on its committee of agriculture – for the planting of 2,550 beech trees on his estate. Thereafter, he continued to cultivate a wide variety of trees and in 1794, the year before his death, he published A practical treatise on planting and the management of woods and coppices. Based on a lifetime’s experience – Hayes noted that while he drew on the knowledge of other men, the work primarily reflected ‘my own experience, founded on considerable practice’ – this was the first-such work produced in Ireland . As its title indicates, the book was intended to be a practical guide for other landowners who wished to follow his example, and offered advice on how best to plant and manage trees, not least for the production of timber. It included seventeen engravings executed by Dublin artist William Esdall, although the originals may have been drawn by Hayes who, in addition to all his other skills, was a talented draughtsman. Even during his lifetime, the improvements carried out at Avondale had received widespread acknowledgement. Writing in The Post-Chaise Companion or Traveller’s Directory through Ireland (published 1786), William Wilson noted, that the estate ‘may justly claim the traveller’s attention, both from its fine natural situation, and the great pains and cxpense the owner has been at to dress and improve it to the perfection it has now attained. It is proudly situated on the banks of the Avonmore, which name, signifying “The great winding dream,” corresponds most happily with its character; the banks continually forming the finest waving lines, either covered with close coppice wood, or with scattered oak and ash of considerable growth ; the ground, in some places, smooth meadow or pasturc, and, in others, rising into romantic cliffs and craggy precipices. The domain of Avondale enjoys this diversity of scenery in the highest perfection.’ 





Hayes’s interest in architecture has already been mentioned. An amateur practitioner, he sat on the committee responsible for the extension of the Irish House of Commons, for which drawings were prepared in 1786 by James Gandon: Hayes wrote to the latter, declaring that ‘Except the windows, the building is finished exactly after my first sketch…a design as much as possible in the manner of Sir William Piers[sic] and Mr Burgh, a kinsman of mine and of the Speaker’s, who were both concerned in the façade to College-green, and for which reason among others, I wished to have the western front as much as possible in the same style.’ How much of the eventual design can be attributed to Hayes is open to speculation, but he was certainly responsible for the market house still seen in the centre of Monaghan town and commissioned in 1792 by General Robert Cuninghame, future first Lord Rossmore. Hayes is also thought to have had a hand in the house at Avondale, which dates from 1779 and for which he is believed to have commissioned designs from James Wyatt. Certainly, many elements of the house are in the Wyatt style, not least the insertion of  Coade panels into what is otherwise a severe, rendered exterior, the rear of which is similarly relieved by a substantial full-length bow. Inside, the entrance hall, its decoration a whimsical mix of the classical and Gothick, is double-height, with a gallery on the first-floor providing light onto a bedroom passage. Many of the other reception rooms appear to have undergone later alteration but the dining room has elaborate neo-classical plasterwork in the Wyatt style. When Hayes died in 1795 he left no direct heir and therefore bequeathed the Avondale estate to a cousin, Sir John Parnell, with a stipulation that it should subsequently pass to a younger son. In due course Avondale was inherited by the youngest of Sir John’s children, William who changed his surname to Parnell-Hayes; in due course, one of his grandsons, Charles Stewart Parnell, came to own the estate. In 1904, some years after his death, Avondale was purchased by the state and became a forestry school. Today, the place is owned and managed by Coillte, the state-owned commercial forestry company, with the house open to the public. 


A Room Reborn



Over the past few decades, visitors to Russborough, County Wicklow have become familiar with the house’s drawing room being painted with honey-toned walls and plasterwork picked out in white. However, research in recent years has shown that this scheme only dates from the mid-20th century and that before then the room was decorated in an altogether more florid manner. Surviving photographs from the 19th century, as well as paint analysis, reveals that originally, while the walls were coloured a soft white, their stuccowork was part-gilded and part-coppered, in a fashion unlike anything else found in Ireland or Britain. Commissioned by Joseph Leeson, first Earl of Milltown and designed by Richard Castle, the leading country house architect of the period, Russborough dates from the mid-18th century and many of its contents were collected by Leeson while he undertook two Grand Tours, both including time spent in Rome. There he encountered French artist Claude-Joseph Vernet and from him commissioned a series of eight landscape paintings to hang in the drawing room. These were gradually dispersed so that by the time Sir Alfred Beit bought the property, none remained. In 1968, he bought back four oval pictures and reinstated them in the empty stucco cartouches. More recently, four other landscape paintings, either by Vernet or his pupil Charles Francois Grenier de Lacroix (also known as Vernet Lacroix) were acquired by the Apollo Foundation and lent to Russborough, so that the drawing room, as known to Joseph Leeson, could be recreated. Following many months of work, it opened to the public earlier this week and is a revelation of 18th century decorative taste in Ireland.


Holding Court


The former courthouse in Shillelagh, County Wicklow. The main body of the building dates from 1893-94 when erected by local landlord, the sixth Earl Fitzwilliam; a report from the time ascribes the design to one ‘Mr Fieldsend’ who may have worked for the Fitzwilliams on their main estate in Yorkshire (there is no documentation of someone with that name undertaking any other work in Ireland). Originally called the New Hall, the building served a variety of purposes, not just a location for the local petty sessions court but also a venue for meetings and dances. In July 1893 the future seventh Earl Fitzwilliam came of age and his father’s tenants decided to commemorate this event by enhancing the courthouse with a clock tower and weather vane. Seemingly these were again designed by the aforementioned Mr Fieldsend, but the clock came from Johnson’s of Grafton Street, Dublin. Subsequently donated to the village, the building was used as a sessions court until 2001 after which it remained empty for six years until restored as a community centre, although it would now seem to be in need of some attention once again.

A Labour of Love


Running to some 62 acres, Powerscourt, County Wicklow is unquestionably Ireland’s most famous – and most photographed – country house garden, but what can be seen here today is of relatively recent origin. The building around which it was created has origins in a medieval tower house constructed by the de la Poers, whence derives the site’s name. In the 1730s, this structure was encased in a large Palladian house designed for Richard Wingfield, first Viscount Powerscourt by the architect Richard Castle. But the surrounding landscape remained largely unadorned, the ground behind the building dropping down to a large, irregular stretch of water called Juggy’s Pond, beyond which the vista was closed by the distant Sugarloaf Mountain. Only in the 19th century did the scene begin to change, initially thanks to the sixth Viscount who in 1843 employed architect and landscape designer Daniel Robertson to produce plans that would divide the sloping ground into a series of Italianate terraces, supposedly inspired by those at the Villa Butera (now Trabia) in Sicily. In a book about the estate that he published in 1907, the seventh viscount remembered being brought from his schoolroom one October morning to lay the first stone of this scheme. He also recalled how Robertson, who was forever in debt, would periodically have to hide in one of Powerscourt’s domes when the Sheriff’s officers came to arrest him. As for the gardens, Robertson, who found himself better able to work after sufficient quantities of alcohol had been consumed, in consequence suffered from gout. As a result, he ‘used to be wheeled out on the Terrace in a wheelbarrow, with a bottle of sherry, and as long as that lasted he was able to design and direct the workmen, but when the sherry was finished, he collapsed and was incapable of working till the drunken fit evaporated.’ However, in 1844 the sixth viscount, who had travelled to Italy to buy vases and sculptures for the intended garden, died of consumption before reaching home. Work on the site stopped during his young heir’s minority and it was not until the latter had reached adulthood in 1858 and assumed responsibility for the estate that the garden once more began to receive attention. 





By the time the seventh Viscount Powerscourt started taking an active interest in the gardens of his country house, Daniel Robertson had died. However, the estate’s owner took a keen interest in finishing the incomplete job, visiting a number of key sites in Europe, such as the gardens at Versailles as well as those around the Schönbrunn Palace outside Vienna and the Schwetzingen Palace near Mannheim. He also consulted a number of landscape gardeners such as James Howe and William Brodrick Thomas. The second of these was also employed by Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace and Sandringham in Norfolk. In the end, however, it was largely Lord Powerscourt himself and his Scottish head gardener, Alexander Robertson (no relation of the previously mentioned Daniel) who drew up their own scheme. Robertson, described by his employer as a very clever man with ‘more taste than any man of his class that I ever saw’ died in 1860 but by then the main outlines of the project had been agreed, and work started, not least on creating the terraces, on which it seems 100 men laboured for ten years. Lord Powerscourt reported that one of the difficulties faced was that because the ground had once been part of a glacier moraine, water kept coming to the surface of the ground and threatening to wash away the work; Robertson proposed thatbefore anything else was done, holes be dug at the back of each terrace so that the water inside, on coming to the surface ‘should fall down through the holes into the next stratum and disappear. This was done and we had no more trouble.’ Similar feats of engineering had to be undertaken to transform what had hitherto been Juggy’s Pond into the basin seen today: inspired by Bernini’s Triton Fountain in Rome, it has a central jet which can reach 100 feet. Another key feature added during this period is the Perron, a terrace situated part of the way down the central walk to the basin, designed by the English architect and astronomer Francis Penrose. This was intended to offer a viewing platform to what lies beyond, but also to break the monotony of the descent. The Perron has elaborate geometric mosaic paving, finished in 1875 and made from different coloured pebbles collected on the nearby beach at Bray. Meanwhile, Lord Powerscourt had continued to add to the collection of statuary and urns begun by his father, buying old pieces and commissioning new ones: the pair of figures representing Victory and Fame were made for him in 1866 by Hugo Hagen in Berlin: the same sculptor was also responsible for the pegasi down by the basin’s edge.





Lord Powerscourt never stopped adding new features to the grounds of Powerscourt, which extend much further than is indicated here. It is said that he did so because for a long time he and his wife had no children, and he did not want to leave anything for his somewhat disreputable younger brother Lewis Wingfield (and then, after 16 years of marriage, Lady Powerscourt had five children in succession).  After he died in 1904, the family struggled to maintain the estate and eventually, in 1961 it was sold to the Slazenger family, which owns it still although, as is well known, the house was tragically gutted by fire in 1974. But the gardens remain much as they were during the seventh viscount’s time and draw large numbers of visitors. The pictures shown today were taken on a rare occasion when the grounds were entirely empty, allowing the Irish Aesthete to have the place to himself. In style, they are intended as a homage to those taken by Eugene Atget a century ago in the Parc de Saint-Cloud outside Paris. 

A Massive Undertaking II



Last Monday’s post featured a very brief synopsis of the history of Coollattin, County Wicklow, believed to be the largest house in Ireland. The core of the building, and that first seen by visitors today, was designed in the 1790s for the fourth Earl Fitzwilliam by John Carr of York. In the mid-1870s the sixth earl decided to expand the property by creating a new entrance front as well as adding a new south range along with servants’ wing, stables and carriage houses, hence the place’s considerable size today. He gave this job to another Yorkshire resident, his clerk of works at Wentworth Woodhouse, William Dickie. Whereas the original house is finished with lined render, the extensions are fronted in local granite, so for the most part, at least on the exterior, it is possible to see which parts are by Carr and which by Dickie. 



The most striking addition made by Dickie and his client to the building is a new entrance at what had been the rear of Coollattin. The ground slopes behind the house, so this entrance is at a lower level than its predecessor to the south, and features a great portico with paired Doric columns and a flight of granite steps leading up to the door. Inside is a fine hall with coved ceiling and flagged limestone floor. A smaller inner hall contains a large chimneypiece but to the immediate right is a flight of steps which in due course turns 90 degrees to introduce the main staircase climbing to the ground floor of the original house. Beneath a coffered ceiling and lit by a line of tall arched windows – these matched by a balustraded gallery with similar openings on the facing side of the steps – this staircase has terrific drama, reminiscent of that found in Piedmontese or Sicilian Baroque palaces. It is quite unlike anything else in the entire building, much of the rest of Dickie’s work here being competent but lacking excitement. When eventually restored, this great staircase will provide a most marvelous ceremonial access to this important Irish country house. 


A Massive Undertaking I



Many people will be familiar with the travails in recent years of Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire, said to be the largest private house in England (and with the longest facade of any house in Europe). However, they are unlikely to know about Coolattin, County Wicklow which, at 65,000 square feet is thought to be the largest private house in Ireland. It is no coincidence that both properties – which suffered such long periods of neglect that their respective futures looked imperilled – were originally built for the same family, the Earls Fitzwilliam. In England and Ireland alike, the Fitzwilliams were very substantial landowners – here they came to have some 90,000 acres – which allowed them to build on a more palatial scale than most other peers. And the rich seams of coal on their Yorkshire property further enhanced their wealth, as was described in Catherine Bailey’s 2007 book Black Diamonds: The Rise and Fall of an English Dynasty. However, their direct link with Ireland only began in 1782 when the fourth earl inherited the estates of his childless maternal uncle, the second Marquess of Rockingham: the latter was a descendant of Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford who had been Charles I’s Irish Lord Deputy in the 1630s and while here embarked on what was then intended to be the country’s largest private house, at Jigginstown, County Kildare (his recall in 1640 left the building unfinished). 





In January 1794 the fourth Earl Fitzwilliam arrived in Ireland as the country’s new Lord Lieutenant. At this time, the French Revolution was at its most violent and the British government rightly feared similar insurrection could occur here: Fitzwilliam believed the best way to avoid such a state of affairs was to promote Catholic Emancipation and curb the power of the Protestant Ascendancy. However, rather like Lord Strafford before him he managed to alienate many potential supporters and by March of the following year he was on his way back to England, his Lieutenancy term having been brought to an abrupt end. Nevertheless, he retained an interest in Ireland and decided to build himself a proper residence on his Wicklow estate here at Coolattin. There seems to have been some building, perhaps a hunting lodge on the site already because as early as 1776 suggestions were made for its improvement. However work only began in 1796, to a design by the Yorkshire architect John Carr whose long life and successful career saw his style move from Palladianism to  Adamesque classicism. The Fitzwilliams had already employed Carr in England, which explains how he received the commission in this country. He was not an innovator, so the house is conservative and restrained in style, the entrance front being of two storeys and of five bays, with a three-bay breakfront beneath a substantial pediment holding the Fitzwilliam coat of arms. A relatively modest doorcast with fanlight is framed by free-standing Tuscan order columns supporting a wide pediment.The side elevations are distinguished by generous full-height central bows. Even before this was finished, Coolattin was burnt during the 1798 Rising, so much of it had then to be rebuilt in the first years of the 19th century. 





As shall be explained in due course, during the 19th century Coolattin underwent considerable expansion and alteration, so that it is not always easy to see what parts today survive from the original Carr building. The entrance front, for example, was moved from south to north, and the wall between hall and drawing room removed in order to create one large reception space. In the 1880s the adjacent library was hung with a Chinese wallpaper, with a room to the rear of the house receiving the same treatment. From here one moves to the dining room which the plans show was intended to be bowed at both ends but it appears this part of Carr’s scheme was never executed as only the east (window) side concludes in a bow. However, its equivalent on the other side of the staircase hall is double-bowed. Unraveling what parts of the interior design date from which period will be an ongoing challenge, not least in the aforementioned staircase hall, its great coved ceiling holding a dome to light the space. The first floor features a gallery, each of its walls containing three large arches, some blind, some giving access to bedrooms, all topped with glazed fanlights.
Given the size of the place, and the persons involved in its rise and near-fatal fall, the story of Coolattin is a long one, but to summarise: the Fitzwilliams remained in possession of the property well into the last century: in 1943 the eighth earl inherited the estate, along with those in England. As is well known, five years later he was killed in a plane crash, as was the woman with whom he was then having an affair, the widowed Marchioness of Hartington, otherwise known as Kathleen Kennedy, sister of future President John F Kennedy. His widow, Olive Plunket lived on at Coolattin until her own death in 1975 after which it was sold by the Fitzwilliams’ only child, Lady Juliet Tadgell (mother-in-law, incidentally, of British Conservative politician Jacob Rees-Mogg). Coolattin then went through an unfortunate period when it changed hands a couple of times, with much of the surrounding land and all the remaining original contents sold off. In 1983 it was acquired, along with 63 acres, by an American couple, the Wardrops, who did much to ensure the place survived. Twelve years later, her husband having died, the widow sold Coolattin to the local golf club which sought to expand its course from nine to 18 holes. For the next quarter century the building stood unoccupied and although some maintenance work was undertaken, it is now in poor shape. Offered for sale last year, Ireland’s biggest house has just been bought by a small group of concerned individuals who have set themselves the task of bringing the place back from the brink of ruin. They face an undertaking as massive as Coolattin itself. 



More about Coollattin on Wednesday…

A Stroll along the Mall



Today the word ‘mall’ is usually applied to shopping centres with pretensions to grandeur, but historically malls were outdoor urban spaces in which the local population would stroll and socialise. No doubt originally The Mall in Wicklow town was intended to perform just such a function. Situated on ground steeply rising above the point where the Vartry river flows into the Irish Sea ,and therefore overlooking the harbour, The Mall is separated from Main Street immediately below by a retaining wall built of local granite and dating from c.1875. A double flight of steps links the two areas and to go from one to the other pedestrians pass under a wrought-iron arch centred on a glazed lantern. There ends whatever charm The Mall has today, since much of it is now a muddle of traffic congestion and neglected buildings, not least the former Bayview Hotel which occupies a particularly prominent spot. Originally constructed as a private residence around 1810 and called Bellevue, the property became a library in 1925 and later an hotel. Before the economic recession, there had been plans that it form part of a shopping centre complex but this never happened and it has been in decline since then. A year ago, the building, along with its neighbours, was sold for €903,000. One must hope the new owners have plans to improve the prospects not just of this site but the entire area. A stroll along The Mall ought to be a pleasure.


Festina Lente


The Plunket family has been mentioned here before, not least the Hon Brinsley Plunket who in November 1927 married Aileen Guinness, eldest daughter of Ernest Guinness (see Temps Perdu « The Irish Aesthete). The couple were related: the grandmother of Brinsley (always known as Brinny) Plunket had been a Guinness, sister to Aileen’s grandfather. Another curiosity: the groom’s great-great aunt, the Hon Katherine Plunket, who died in 1932 when a month short of her 112the birthday, is recorded as the longest-living person in Ireland. Brinny Plunket was younger brother of Terence (known as Teddy), sixth Lord Plunket. A talented cartoonist who later turned to painting portraits, in 1922 Teddy had married Dorothé Mabel Lewis, illegitimate daughter of the 7th Marquess of Londonderry and American actress Fannie Ward. Teddy and Dorothé were intimate friends of the Duke of York (later George VI) and his wife Elizabeth; the latter was godmother to the couple’s second son Robin in 1925 while the Duke was godfather to their third child Shaun six years later. Both Teddy and Dorothé would be killed in a plane crash in California in February 1938 while on their way to attend a party at William Randolph Hearst’s San Simeon estate. Their close links to the royal family meant the couple’s eldest son Patrick, seventh Baron Plunket, would serve as Equerry to Elizabeth II and Deputy Master of the Royal Household until his death in 1975.






The rise of the Plunkets had begun in the late 18th century with William Conyngham Plunket. The son of a Presbyterian minister, he became a lawyer famous for having been lead prosecutor at Robert Emmet’s trial in 1803. Two years later he was made Attorney-General for Ireland and also became a member of the Irish Privy Council. A supporter of Catholic Emancipation, in 1827 he was created Baron Plunket, became Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas and later served as Lord Chancellor of Ireland. Obviously a man of such prominence needed to have a country seat and so in the mid-1780s he took a lease on an estate to the south of Dublin called Old Connaught. Originally there appears to have been a late-medieval tower house on this site, built by a branch of the Walsh family, but this was badly damaged by a fire in 1776 and seven years later the property was leased to an Anglican clergyman, the Rev William Gore, Bishop of Limerick. He embarked on building a new house for himself but died almost as soon as it was finished, and before long the lease was acquired, and then bought out, by William Conyngham Plunket, in whose family it would remain for the next 150 years. As demonstrated by the Hon Katherine, provided they weren’t killed in plane crashes, the Plunkets tended to live long, and the first baron was just six months shy of turning 90 when he died in 1854.  His eldest son, the second baron (father of the aforementioned Hon Katherine Plunket), was a clergyman who rose to become Bishop of Tuam but had no sons, so following his death the title, and Old Connaught, passed to a younger brother. On the third baron’s death, he was succeeded by his eldest son William Plunket who was another clergyman (for generations, male members of this family either joined the church or practised as lawyers). Like several forebears, the fourth baron rose through the ranks of the Church of Ireland, eventually becoming Archbishop of Dublin where he was instrumental in establishing a teacher training school in Kildare Place. That building is long gone (replaced by a mediocre office block housing the Dept of Agriculture) but Archbishop Plunket is commemorated by a statue which depicts him pensively observing his surroundings. In 1863 he married Anne Lee Guinness, and her substantial marriage settlement allowed improvements and extensions to be undertaken at Old Connaught, with both house and gardens benefitting, the former not least by the addition of a large conservatory – since lost – to one side of the building. As mentioned, the archbishop was Brinny Plunket’s grandfather while Anne Lee Guinness was great-aunt of Aileen Guinness, hence the link between the later couple. The archbishop’s eldest son, also William, was a diplomat who served as Governor of New Zealand 1904-10.






What has all the above to do with today’s photographs? These show the restored walled gardens of Old Connaught House. Following his parents’ death in California in 1938, the estate was inherited by their eldest son Patrick, but he and his siblings were raised by a paternal aunt in London and had little to do with Ireland. But even before then the family had largely abandoned the place, leasing it in 1935 to the Christian Brothers who used the house as a senior novitiate school under the name Colaiste Ciaran. The surrounding land was run as a farm and the old gardens used for growing fruit and vegetables. Having subsequently bought the estate from the Plunkets, the order remained there until 1972 when it was decided to close the novitiate school and sell or lease sections of the estate. The house itself remained in the hands of the Christian Brothers until 1999 when finally put on the market with just 12 acres; today the building is divided into a series of flats. Meanwhile, the old walled garden, long cultivated first by the Plunkets and then the brothers, was left to fall into ruin. In 1996 the gardens and stableyard were leased to a charity founded eight years earlier to provide a range of programmes for the disabled and disadvantaged. This body is called Festina Lente (Hurry Slowly) taking its name from the Plunket family motto, and reflects the process whereby the old walled gardens, running to some two and a half acres, were gradually resuscitated, one section reflecting the character of the site in the mid-19th century when Archbishop Plunket and his family would have lived at Old Connaught. Another part of the gardens is largely divided into allotments, filled with vegetables, fruit trees and flowers, just as would once have been the case. Incidentally, the wooden platforms seen on the middle garden’s long ponds are for the sake of terrapins who live here. The gardens (which also feature a shop and cafe) are open daily to the public for free, although donations are always welcome. Well worth supporting, so do consider hurrying along there (and not slowly).

 

 

…To the Other End of Town



Located at the northern end of Rathdrum, County Wicklow, this is what remains of Ardavon, once home to the Comerfords, a family responsible for building a mill in the lower part of the town in the mid-19th century. The mill eventually closed in 1935 but the buildings still stand on one side of the bridge crossing the river Avonmore. Meanwhile the Comerfords remained at Ardavon until 1958 when the house was acquired by the Wicklow County Vocational Education Committee. It was then used as a school but in 1991 Avondale Community College opened and Ardavon became redundant, a property owned, but not used, by the local authority. Soon enough the inevitable happened: in 1997 the house was badly damaged by fire and despite undertakings by Wicklow Council to undertake restoration work, it has remained a roofless ruin ever since.


From One End of Town…



Located at one end of Rathdrum, County Wicklow, this is the former Royal Fitzwilliam Hotel, opened in October 1863 beside the station by the Dublin & South Eastern Railway. Although trains still stop here, the hotel closed in 1931 and appears to have been left empty for many years, although for a brief period earlier this century it was used to house asylum seekers. At the height of the economic boom, it was offered for sale at €1.9 million, but failed to find a buyer: by 2013 the price had plunged to €150,000, but still there were no takers. In the interim it was subject to vandalism before finally, in December 2009, being badly damaged by fire. Since then its condition has further deteriorated and is now in a pitiful state, with the handful of distinguishing features such as the cast-iron drinking fountain, being allowed to rot.