Tag Archives: Georgian Architecture

A Good Fry


In his Dictionary of British 18th Century Painters, Ellis Waterhouse describes Thomas Frye (1710-62) as ‘one of the most original and least standardised portrait painters of his generation.’ Frye was born in Edenderry, County Offaly, a younger son of one John Fry whose father, born in Holland of English parents, appears to have settled in Ireland in the 17th century. Little is known of Frye’s training, although in their book on Ireland’s Painters, Anne Crookshank and the Knight of Glin note that his earliest signed work, dated 1732, ‘seems to have silvery echoes of James Latham’ so perhaps he spent time in the latter’s studio. Around this time, or even earlier, Frye left Ireland and by 1736 had settled in London where he was sufficiently well-known to be commissioned to paint the portrait of Frederick, Prince of Wales for the Company of Saddlers. While Frye specialised in portraiture, from the mid-1740s onwards, he became involved in the manufacture of fine porcelain and from around 1747 onwards he managed a factory producing this ware which he had co-founded in Bow on the outskirts of London. Due to ill-health, he had to retire from the business in 1759 but then concentrated on creating mezzotints, in which medium he again displayed both imagination and  innovation. Today Frye is best-remembered for two series of mezzotints issued in the years immediately prior to his death; these show a fondness for dramatic chiaroscuro and what has been called a ‘Gothic intensity.’ As is widely known, these pictures would have a considerable influence on Joseph Wright of Derby and other later artists. Published in 1760 and 1761, the two series are all of heads, almost life-size, and although the sitters were unnamed, they are believed to have been taken from life: Strickland, in his Dictionary of Irish Artists (1913) reports that Frye had difficulty persuading ladies to sit for these pictures, as they were uncertain of the company in which their portraits would appear.  Strickland also recorded that having been very corpulent and prone to gout, Frye adopted a spare diet, in consequence of which he ‘fell into consumption’ and died in April 1762. 





For a long time, two of Thomas Frye’s portraits hung in a house called Frybrook, in Boyle, County Roscommon. This property dates from some time after 1742 when the Edenderry merchant Henry Fry (older brother of the aforementioned Thomas Frye) was invited to move to Boyle by James King, fourth Baron Kingston whose family owned the town and, when there, lived in King House. As with many other large landowners of the time, King was keen to improve the economic circumstances of his estate, and thereby increase his own income, so Fry was expected not just to settle in Boyle but also to establish a weaving business there. The Frys appear to have prospered; in  1835, Henry Fry of Frybrook and his relative, also called Henry Fry, of another house in the vicinity, Fairyhill, were founding members of the Boyle branch of the Agricultural and Commercial Bank (although this venture failed nationally after only a couple of years). Successive generations of Frys continued to live in the family home until the 1980s when, for the first time, it was offered for sale. Thereafter the house somehow survived but slowly fell into decline and appeared at risk of being lost forever until purchased by the present owners five years ago. 





Frybrook is located in the centre of Boyle, on land immediately north of the river (also called Boyle) with its gate lodge – now a cafe – standing immediately beside the town’s main bridge. Found at the end of a short drive, the house is of five bays and three storeys, the absence of a basement explained by the proximity of the river, with its threat of flooding. Frybrook is rather more grand than the usual urban residence, its facade suggesting a country house, with a pedimented limestone doorcase with sidelights below a Venetian window above which is an oculus window. Inside, the ground floor has an entrance hall with main staircase to the rear, and reception rooms to the right and left; behind these, and down a few steps are the former servants’ quarters. The stairs climb to the first floor where additional large reception rooms, with fine cornices and handsome architraves above the windows, can be found; originally the main bedrooms were on the floor above. On the way up to this level, unusually the return is semi-elliptical with a door in its centre giving access to the service areas to the rear of the house. As mentioned, Frybrook was at risk of being lost before being bought by the present owners five years ago. Since acquiring the building, they have undertaken extensive restoration and plan to open Frybrook as a guest house in 2024. 

A Norwegian Connection



The name of St Olav’s church in Waterford testifies to the city’s Viking origins: Olaf II was a Norweigan king killed at the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030, and canonised in 1164. The original church here, likely made of wood, is supposed to have been constructed around 1050, long before Olav became a saint, so it must have been named after him at a later date, perhaps when the stone structure was built. The latter had fallen into ruin by the early 17th century and only an arched doorcase survives at the west end of the present church, which occupies the same site but was erected in the 1730s on the instructions of the then-Bishop of Waterford, Thomas Milles: its design has been attributed to William Halfpenny who, during the same period, produced designs for the Bishop’s Palace and Christ Church Cathedral, neither of which were executed (see: The Finest 18th century Ecclesiastical Building in Ireland « The Irish Aesthete). St Olav’s remained a place of worship until 1970 and today serves as a community centre.


The Protected Structure


Anyone who travels about Ireland cannot fail to notice the sheer number of vacant buildings which have been left to fall into dereliction and which are intermittently the subject of attention on this site. Sadly, such is the case with today’s property, Kilheffernan Cottage, County Tipperary. 





This is a curious building in three parts and the challenge for anyone looking at the place is working out dates of construction for each member of the trio. To the left (westerly) is a two storey, three bay house with two deep windows, six over six panes, on the ground floor and a blank wall between them; marks on the exterior render suggest that there was once a door here providing access to the house. The building to the right (east) now has a steeply pitched corrugated iron roof but, it is proposed in buildingsofireland.ie, was originally thatched. Four pretty glazed doors with decorative overlights open to a large single room which, in turn, leads into the little link building, an entrance hall with coved ceiling and glazed porch to the front. As for the largest of the buildings, the ground floor contains two reception rooms as well as a kitchen and ancillary rooms to the rear. The most notable feature is the wooden spiral staircase that snakes up to the first floor bedrooms and bathrooms. Unfortunately, having been neglected for a long period, slates have been lost from the roof and the interior has suffered severe damage from water ingress; regrettably, all the chimneypieces have also been removed. There is a range of outbuildings to the rear of the property. 





Tracing the history of Kilheffernan Cottage is something of a challenge. At least some of it must date from the 18th century. According to landedestates.ie, a Thomas Ryan, whose family had been resident in the area since the early 1700s, was proprietor of the place in 1814. Samuel Lewis likewise lists T. Ryan as being there in 1837 and by the time of Griffith’s Valuation a couple of decades later, Patrick Fennelly held the house – valued at £10 and 13 shillings – from Thomas Ryan. In 1922 the historian Maurice O’Connell, a descendant of Daniel O’Connell, was born at Kilheffernan Cottage where his parents were then living. In 2005, the year of Maurice O’Connell’s death, the place was offered for sale with 15 acres. Since then, it would appear to have sat empty and allowed to fall into its present condition. Inevitably, the house is included on the local authority’s list of protected structures. 

Remembering What’s Lost



Ireland’s Decade of Centenaries, marking the country’s ten years of transformation 1913-23 is now drawing to a close, but there are still opportunities for analysis and reflection about what happened during that period. On Saturday, October 7th the Irish Aesthete will be participating in County Tipperary’s annual Dromineer Nenagh Literary Festival (celebrating its own 20th anniversary), in conversation with poet Vona Groarke about some of the great houses which were burnt in the early 1920s, many of them never rebuilt and lost forever. One such was Ardfert, County Kerry, set on fire in August 1922. The photographs above show the building before and after the conflagration, while those below are images of the interior, including the panelled hall with its classical grisaille figures, and the splendid main staircase, all lost in that fire, after which the house was pulled down so that nothing survives as a memory of its existence.



For further information about this event and others in the Dromineer Nenagh Literary Festival, please see: Left without a Handkerchief – dnlf

Acts of Folly


Follies of all varieties have featured here in the past, but one genre is especially interesting: the building designed to look older than was actually the case. In Ireland, some of the earliest examples of this style, in the form of faux-antique rusticated buildings, can be found at Tollymore Park, County Down (see Do the Wright Thing « The Irish Aesthete), the design of, or at least inspiration for, which came from Thomas Wright who visited the estate in September 1746. Wright is also credited with being responsible for the Rustic Arch at Belvedere, County Westmeath (see Very Mannered « The Irish Aesthete) which dates from around the same period as he was in this country. But the fashion for such structures lingered long after his departure, as is demonstrated by the gatelodge at Bracklyn, County Westmeath (see Refined Rusticity « The Irish Aesthete) where a shield above the bellcote arch bears the date 1821, although the building may have been constructed earlier. Nevertheless, it provides evidence that rusticity achieved nationwide popularity, with one fine example being found in County Laois.





The grotto at Ballyfin, County Laois probably dates from the third quarter of the 18th century, when the estate belonged to William Pole who lived there with his wife, Lady Sarah Moore. The couple were responsible for laying out the demesne in the newly-fashionable arcadian manner, not least by the addition of a large, man-made lake, close to which the grotto can be found. And like the lake, this structure was intended to look as though designed by nature, rather than a clever piece of artifice. The grotto lies below a mound on top of which once stood a long-since lost summer house, a suitable destination for a stroll from the main house. And while the latter would have demonstrated the civilised character of its owners, the grotto was, in parallel, intended to display their romantic sensibilities, influenced by Rousseau-esque notions of the noble savage. A roughly circular space in front of the little building is centred on a small pond, fed by a stream that trickles over stones down one side of the mound. The grotto occupies a generous portion of the circle, and takes the form of a primitive temple, with the substantial portico supported by large vertical boulders imitating columns, complete with uncut capitals. Beyond the portico are three openings, the middle one providing an entrance to the interior, one large room, the floor inlaid with pebbles around another circular pool. Above this rises the vaulted ceiling, a rustic version of that found in the Pantheon in Rome complete with central opening. In this instance, however, the view is not of open sky but of another giant stone seemingly hovering in space (although in fact it is supported by a number of other boulders not visible while inside the chamber). As already noted, the grotto at Ballyfin was envisaged to look as though nobody had been involved in its construction but instead had just happened, like a cave. But also highly popular during the same period were another kind of artificial building: the sham ruin.





The same romantic sensibility that led to the construction of Ballyfin’s grotto was also responsible for inspiring the ‘ruin’ seen at Killua Castle, County Westmeath. The castle is itself a sham, since when originally constructed by Sir Benjamin Chapman around 1784 this was a strictly classical house. It was Sir Benjamin’s brother and heir, Sir Thomas Chapman, who , after inheriting the estate in 1810 set about transforming the building into the castle seen today. However, perhaps he was inspired by work already undertaken within the demesne by his sibling. In 1800 Sir Benjamin had acquired some of the stonework from the medieval Franciscan friary at Multyfarnham, elsewhere in the same county, and used this to create a charming ‘ruin’ visible from the garden front of the house and occupying a mound overlooking the lake he had created some years earlier. He was by no means the only, or even the first, estate owner to recycle materials from another, older site. In the demesne at Heywood, County Laois Michael Frederick Trench had built an artificial ruined abbey, incorporating fine traceried windows said to be 15th century and to have been brought from the former Dominican friary at Aghaboe, some twelve miles away. The sham ruin at Killua is not intended to look like the remains of an old religious establishment (Sir Benjamin simultaneously employed other stonework to ‘embellish’ the old St. Lua’s Church, lying to the south-east of the demesne), but instead to suggest these were the surviving sections of an old castle or fortified residence. It comprises a two-storey, octagonal tower on octagonal plan with an adjacent wall constructed to look like the remains of a gable end of a building. Like the grotto at Ballyfin, it served no practical purpose other than to delight the eye and to provide a destination when residents of the main house and their guests undertook a walk. Thankfully in recent years both these follies have been restored by their respective owners so that they can continue to do the same today. 

 

A Double Anniversary



This month marks two anniversaries, one of which is that the Irish Aesthete now turns eleven, having made his first appearance on the internet in September 2012. But the month also commemorates an older anniversary: the fortieth anniversary of the Irish Aesthete’s first job, as resident curator of the Damer House in Roscrea, County Tipperary.* The house has a complex history, made more so by the fact that it was constructed within the walls of a 13th century castle around which grew the town of Roscrea. As its name indicates, the building was commissioned by a member of the Damer family, the first of whom Joseph Damer, moved from Dorset to Ireland and here grew wealthy as a banker and moneylender. Having no heirs, he left his money to a nephew, John Damer, who in 1722 bought Roscrea from the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham (that institution had, in turn, bought the town from the Butler family in 1703). 





There may have been an older residence on or near the site of the present Damer House which, despite often being called ‘Queen Anne’ in style, likely dates from the 1730s (in other words, during the reign of George II). Of three storeys over basement and with unusually tall narrow windows spread across nine bays, the pre-Palladian house’s finest internal feature is a carved pine staircase, in style not dissimilar to that of the slightly later Cashel Palace. Of course, provincial architecture was often out of step with the latest fashion, which would help to explain the building’s somewhat outdated style. In addition, by the time it was built, wealthy families had largely given up living in regional towns, preferring to reside on their country estates. That would appear to have been the case with the Damers who around the same time as the Damer House was being built, also embarked on the construction of another residence, Damer Court, which stood on land they owned to the west of Tipperary town; although nothing remains of this building – by the mid-19th century it was described as ‘a shell of a building’ – but a townland in the area is called Damerville.  As for the Damer House, it does not appear to have served as a residence for the family but was rented out to a succession of tenants for much of the 18th century. In 1798 the house was leased as a barracks and then the whole site sold to the British military in 1858. At the start of the last century the Damer House became ‘Mr. French’s Academy’, a school for boys, reverting to a barracks for the National Army during the Civil War, then being used as a sanatorium, before once again in 1932 serving as a school until 1956, then a library. By 1970 it was empty and unused, and the local authority, Tipperary County Council, announced plans to demolish the house and replace it with an amenity centre comprising a swimming pool, car park, playground and civic centre (it had been nurturing this scheme since as far back as 1957). The council’s chairman wanted the demolition to go ahead, declaring that ‘as long as it stands it reminds the Irish people of their enslavement to British rule,’ and dismissing objectors to the scheme as ‘a crowd of local cranks.’ In fact, most of the so-called ‘crowd’ were members of the Old Roscrea Society and in December 1970 this organisation was offered help by the Irish Georgian Society in the campaign to save the Damer House.





In 1971 the local council agreed not to demolish the Damer House. On the other hand, it did nothing to preserve the building and in November 1973, on learning that restoration would cost in the region of £40,000, the authority decided to go ahead with demolition after all. The Irish Georgian Society once more intervened, this time proposing it take on a lease for the building and assume responsibility for its restoration, now budgeted at £80,000 over five years. In February 1974 the council agreed to this arrangement and the Society took on the house for a period of 99 years at an annual rent of one shilling. The restoration of the Damer House was to be its contribution to European Architectural Heritage Year 1975. Work on the project began in mid-August 1974 and was overseen by the late Brian Molloy. The place was in terrible condition, debris and rubbish throughout, the basement full of water, every window broken, the staircase shrouded and boxed in. While professionals worked on repairing the roof, the workforce included a dozen architectural students from Dublin and members of the Old Roscrea Society. Volunteers were advised to turn up at the site ‘in old clothes, bringing brushes, buckets and handy tools.’ Work proceeded slowly and was dependent on enough funds being raised for the purpose, some £5,400 being spent on repairs in 1974 and at least the same again the following year. In 1976 £8,000 was required to repair the staircase, including the replacement of missing balustrades and the removal of sixteen pounds in weight of paint from the carved frieze. By June 1977 £22,000 had been spent on the Damer House which was now deemed ready to admit visitors and host exhibitions. Thereafter, while refurbishment continued on both the Damer House and its slightly later annexe, the venue was regularly used for events such as touring exhibitions organised by the Arts Council. In 1980 some of the most influential members of the Old Roscrea Society, notably local teacher George Cunningham, decided to form a new organisation, the Roscrea Heritage Society which later that year organised a large show in the Damer House. Exhibits relevant to the town’s history were lent by both the National Museum and the National Gallery. With aid from a number of public bodies, the house’s annexe was next restored for use as a heritage centre; the first of its kind in Ireland, this opened to the public in 1983 and shortly afterwards won a special award from the adjudicators of European Museum of the Year. In the autumn of 1983, control of the Damer House was handed over to the Roscrea Heritage Society (and that was when the Irish Aesthete arrived to take up residence in the place). Now under the authority of the Office of Public Works, the Damer House – which was recently subject to further restoration of the exterior stonework and windows – is open to the public, along with the surrounding castle and adjacent gardens. Once scheduled for demolition, the Damer House is today regarded as a major architectural and tourist asset for the midlands region of Ireland.



*For those interested, the Irish Aesthete lived in rooms on the right-hand side of the building’s first-floor (and yes, they were very cold). 

A Surprising Survivor


It is likely that most visitors to the Francis Bacon Studio in Dublin’s Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery are so busy looking at what can be seen on the walls and behind glass screens that they rarely, if ever, glance upwards. Yet in one of the spaces there survives a rococo ceiling installed when this was part of the Earl of Charlemont’s library wing in his townhouse, designed by William Chambers and constructed in the 1760s. The greater part of that section of the original building was lost in 1931-33 when then-City Architect Horace O’Rourke converted the house into an art gallery but somehow this one ceiling, featuring interwoven garlands of leaves tied with trailing ribbon and a testament to the skill of an unknown stuccodore, has survived.

Sharing the Site



In a graveyard high above Swinford, County Mayo is this mausoleum where members of the Brabazon family were formerly interred. The Brabazons had come to the area in the first half of the 17th century and were later responsible for developing the town, close to which they built a fine house, Brabazon House, which survived until 1980 when pulled down by the local Health Board. Also gone is St Mary’s, the Church of Ireland where they once worshipped, so this mausoleum, seemingly ‘repaired’ in 1828 by Sir William Brabazon, who was then MP for the area (and who died 12 years later after choking on a chicken bone), is the last remaining evidence of the family’s presence in the area. However, the Brabazons do not have the place to themselves: on top of the mausoleum is a large marble column topped with a cross, which commemorates one Patrick Corley who died in 1875 at the age of 60, while on another side of the mausoleum is a plaque dedicated to successive generations of the O’Donnel family who lived some five miles south at Fahyness (now Faheens).


A Good News Story


Back in January 2017, the Irish Aesthete wrote about an abandoned property called Brandondale in County Kilkenny as follows: ‘The house dates from c.1800 when it was built by Peter Burtchaell whose family had come to Ireland in the middle of the 17th century. The Burchaells were involved in the linen industry which then thrived in this part of Ireland, and also seem to have acted as agents for the Agars, Lords Clifden, large landowners whose seat was Gowran Castle in the same county. Peter Burchaell married the heiress Catherine Rothe and her fortune duly passed into the family which would have provided the necessary money for building a house like Brandondale. In his Handbook for Ireland (1844) James Fraser wrote that the property, ‘occupying a fine site on the northern acclivities of Brandon hill, commands the town, the prolonged and lovely windings of the Barrow, the picturesque country on either side of its banks, and the whole of the Mount Leinster and Black Stairs range of mountains.’ The architecture of the house was that of a two-storey Regency villa, old photographs showing it distinguished by a covered veranda wrapping around the canted bow at the south-eastern end of the building which had views down to the river.’



‘The last of the Burtchaell line to live at Brandondale was Richard, who occupied the place until his death in 1903. He and his wife Sarah had no children and she remained on the property for the next twenty-nine years, struggling to make ends meet by taking in paying guests. After her death the house and remaining fifty acres were sold to the Belgian Baron Kervyn de Lettenhove who first resided there and then rented out the place before he in turn sold it. In the 1980s Brandondale was bought by an Englishman Walter Dominy who moved in with his family and established a printing business. After this failed, in 1993 Mr Dominy left a suicide note in his car while travelling on the Rosslare to Fishguard ferry: fifteen years later an English tabloid newspaper found him living in France. But meanwhile Brandondale changed hands yet again and at some point was subject to a spectacularly poor refurbishment which saw the Regency veranda removed and all the old fenestration replaced with uPVC. In recent years it was taken into receivership and offered for sale on 25 acres for just €150,000, an indication of the building’s atrocious condition (and also of a Compulsory Purchase Order from the local council on part of the land). The place has apparently been sold once more but still sits empty and deteriorating: it can only be a matter of time before Brandondale’s condition is judged so bad that, despite being listed for preservation, demolition is ordered. After which, no doubt, an application will be lodged for houses to be built on the land. A fait accompli.’ (A Fait Accompli « The Irish Aesthete)




That was then, this is now. Happily, the Irish Aesthete’s gloomy predictions of what would happen to Brandondale have proven incorrect. In fact, far from being demolished, the house was subsequently bought by a young couple who are gradually restoring the place as their time and funds allow, and who intend to live in the building as soon as possible. The salvation of Brandondale, rather like that of Cangort Park, County Offaly (see A Work in Progress « The Irish Aesthete) indicates that none of our architectural heritage is beyond salvation and that there are citizens here willing to take on the challenge of bringing such properties back to life. A good news story and one that deserves applause and support. 

Of Very Considerable Importance



In the early 17th century, an English merchant, Gregory Hickman, settled in County Clare and acquired land in an area south of Ennis called Barntick. All seemed well until the outbreak of the Confederate Wars in the early 1640s when he found himself displaced. A deposition made by Hickman in 1642 states that he ‘was robbed of property worth £3,672. It consisted of cattle, sheep, horses, wool, furniture, and of the following farms held under leases for terms of years. Barntick, Cragforna, Drumcaran, Cragnanelly, Termon of Killinaboy, and Inchiquin.’ Hickman also lost the tithes of the parish of Dromcliff, and of debts owed to him by a large number of individuals. He went on to complain that goods belonging to him were ‘carried off by Conor O’Brien of Ballymacooda and by Richard and Mannagh O’Grady. Eighteen packs of his wool were taken away by Laurence Rice, and by another merchant, both of Ennis. Poultry, a side saddle, and furniture, were swept off by Boetius Clancy, by Shevane ny Hehir, wife of Loughlin Reagh O’Hehir of Cahermacon, by James McEncroe of Skagh-vic-Encro; Conor O’Brien of Leamaneh, aided by Mauria Roe his wife, by Melaghlan Oge O’Cashey, and by Conor O’Flanagan possessed themselves of fourteen English hogs and four hundred sheep his property. He states that his servant, Thomas Bacon, was murdered, and that another of his servants, named Joe Preston, was murdered at Clare, by Teige Lynch.’ Poor Mr Hickman then found himself directed hither and thither about the county, at one stage being directed  by Murrough O’Brien, Baron Inchiquin ‘to proceed on board the ship “Dragon” to Kinsale, and to bring thence a quantity of tobacco, there lying useless, which he was to sell in the Shannon, and pay over the proceeds to the Baron to help to sustain his army.’ That expedition ended badly and he subsequently found himself stuck in Clonderalaw Castle while it was under siege. Eventually he managed to reach safety and to regain control of the lands at Barntick, passing these on to his eldest son Thomas who in 1661 built a new house for the family, commemorating this event with a date stone carrying the year and his initials, T.H.  This date stone can now be seen – upside-down – acting as the door lintel for a building in the yard behind the main house. 




Thomas Moland’s Survey of County Clare (1703) states that Barntick had on it ‘a good house, stable, barn and other out houses’. By that date, Thomas Hickman had been succeeded by his own eldest son, also called Thomas, and when the latter died in 1719, Barntick passed to the last of the family to live there, Colonel Robert Hickman, who represented Clare in the Irish House of Commons from 1745 until his death. The colonel’s estate ran to almost 3,000 acres, and he also held other property elsewhere in the county. All of this, however, was heavily mortgaged, so that when he died without an immediate heir in 1757, the entire Hickman lands were sold, Barntick being bought by George Peacocke, who already owned another substantial property, Grange, County Limerick. On his death in 1773, he was succeeded by his son Joseph, a Justice of the Peace and one time High Sheriff of Clare. In 1802, having supported the Act of Union, he was created a baronet and when he died ten years later, the estate was divided between his two sons Sir Nathaniel Peacocke, and the Reverend William Peacocke. But evidently this division was not successful, as by the 1820s the estate was put up for sale by the Court of Chancery. Barntick next belonged to Sir David Roche, an M.P. for Limerick, 1832-1844, who was created a Baronet in 1838. However, in 1855 the house, along with 238 acres, was recorded as being leased to John Lyons and later his family bought the property: his descendants live there still. 




Barntick is thought to be the oldest continuously inhabited house in County Clare. The building is a deep square, the east-facing rendered facade of three storeys and three bays, its carved limestone entrance doorcase approached by a shallow flight of six stone steps. Inside, the front half of the house is divided into three almost equal spaces, comprising a hall with drawing room and dining room on either side. To the rear, a handsome staircase, lit by a single tall window on the return, leads to the bedroom floor. Here the space is divided by a thick central wall running north to south and with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, indicating the house’s early date of construction. The stairs then climb to the top of the building where the entire front is given over to a single room, at present in poor condition. Fortunately, the present generation of the family to own this house appreciates its importance and has begun to carry out essential structural repairs as funds become available. His work is to be thoroughly commended and it has to be hoped that all possible support will be provided by the relevant authorities, both local and national. Barntick is such a special place, and such a rare surviving example of domestic architecture from the post-Restoration period in Ireland, that its preservation ought to be regarded as a matter of considerable importance.