Tag Archives: Historic Interiors

The Country for Ruins

Lackeen Castle, County Tipperary

A request to speak at a forthcoming academic event exploring various perceptions of ruins has led the Irish Aesthete to consider, not for the first time, what might be the particular appeal of historic buildings that have fallen into decay, and why there are so many of them in this country. ‘To delight in the aspects of sentient ruin might appear a heartless pastime,’ Henry James confessed in Italian Hours (1873) ‘and the pleasure, I confess, shows the note of perversity.’ Tumbling roofs and crumbling walls have long exerted a particular appeal, as was noted by Rose Macaulay in her wonderful 1953 book Pleasure of Ruins when she rhetorically enquired ‘what part is played by morbid pleasure in decay, by righteous pleasure in retribution…’ The morbidity of ruins without doubt helps to explain their attraction: in a state of decay, they allow us to engage in romantic speculation which may or may not be accurate. There are certainly many opportunities to engage in such hypothesising in Ireland. In some instances, they can be wonderfully picturesque, a fact highlighted by the clergyman and author William Gilpin who in 1782 published his highly influential book, Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year 1770. Among the points he made was that in landscape painting the presence of a ruined castle or abbey would add to the work what he called ‘consequence.’ The truth of this observation had already been made apparent in the previous century by a number of French artists – Poussin, Claude Lorain, Dughet – based in Italy where they produced paintings in which ruins were often a notable feature.

Clonfert Palace, County Galway

Rappa Castle, County Mayo

Dromore Castle, County Limerick

Graffan House, County Offaly

Works such as those painted by the likes of Poussin et al are known to have had a critical influence on the design of both British and Irish country house landscapes in the 18th century, when the pictures were bought by Grand Tourists and brought back home where parklands and demesnes were laid out to look like them. Sometimes, to enhance the view, they even incorporated artificial ruins as was the case in a number of properties around the country. At Belvedere, County Westmeath, for example, the ‘Jealous Wall’ was constructed. Some 180 feet long, this theatrical sham ruin dates from c.1760 when commissioned by Robert Rochfort, first Earl of Belvedere. Seemingly, it was built in order to block the view south towards Tudenham Park, a house further along Lough Ennell which had been erected some years before by the earl’s younger brother, George Rochfort, with whom he had quarreled. The earl might simply have asked for a high wall, but instead opted for one that romantically looks like the remains of an ancient castle. At Heywood, County Laois – where the grounds were laid out by owner Frederick Trench installed a number of fake ruins in the 1770s, including what appear to be the remains of a ruined medieval church, incorporating a traceried window thought  to be 15th century and to have been brought from the former Dominican friary at Aghaboe, some twelve miles away. Towards the end of the 18th century, the demesne at Lawrencetown, County Galway was similarly enhanced by the addition of a number of follies, including a Gothick eyecatcher, intended to suggest the remains of an otherwise lost building. Back in County Westmeath, at Killua Sir Benjamin Chapman acquired some of the stonework from a medieval Franciscan friary at Multyfarnham and around 1800 used this material to create a charming ‘ruin’ visible from the garden front of the house. 

The Jealous Wall, Belvedere, County Westmeath

Heywood, County Laois

Lawrencetown, County Galway

Killua Castle, County Westmeath

Even without the addition of fake examples, Ireland has never been short of ruins. The observations of  German writer and geographer Johann Georg Kohl who visited Ireland in 1841 have been cited before. ‘Of all the countries in the world’, he wrote, ‘Ireland is the country for ruins. Here you have ruins of every period of history, from the time of the Phoenicians down to the present day…down to our own times each century has marked its progress by the ruins it has left. Nay, every decade, one might almost say, has set its sign upon Ireland, for in all directions you see a number of dilapidated buildings, ruins of yesterday’s erection.’ What this suggests is that the Irish have a particular affinity for decay and dilapidation, given that the stock of ruined buildings seen by Kohl has only further increased since his time, although too often these additions could not be described as picturesque or romantic. Last week, the Irish Times reported on two substantial 19th century houses in Phibsborough, Dublin which in 2009 were added to the city council’s list of derelict sites. A decade later, after the buildings had fallen into still worse condition, they were compulsorily purchased by the authority which then announced plans to restore them for use as social housing. Now, after a further seven years of decline, the council has announced that the cost of undertaking such a restoration would be excessive and that there were currently ‘no plans’ for the properties. Of all the countries in the world, Ireland retains its title as the country for ruins.

Ightermurragh Castle, County Cork

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In the Gallery


‘Over the Supper Room is the Picture Gallery, of the same dimensions, containing many fine Paintings by the first masters, with other great Ornaments, chosen and displayed with great elegance; the Ceiling is arched, and highly enriched and painted, from designs by Mr WYATT. The most distinguished Pictures are, a Student drawing from a Bust by REMBRANDT; the Rape of Europa by CLAUDE LORRAINE; the Triumph of Amphitrite, by LUCCA GIORDANO; two capital pictures of Rubens and his two Wives, by VAN DYCK; Dogs killing a Stag; a fine Picture of Saint Catharine; a Landscape by Barratt; with many others. In a bow in the middle of one side, is a marble Statue, an Adonis, executed by PONCET; a fine bust of Niobe, and of Apollo, are placed on each side. In the Windows of the Bow, are some specimens of modern stained Glass, by Jervis.’
James Malton, c.1795





Today occupied by Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann (the two houses of Ireland’s parliament), Leinster House was originally commissioned in 1745 by James FitzGerald, 20th Earl of Kildare, and future first Duke of Leinster, as his Dublin townhouse, the largest and grandest such residence built in the city during the 18th century. Designed by Richard Castle, the house was intended to hold a picture gallery on the first floor, but this work was not undertaken before the architect’s death in 1751 and towards the end of that decade a second proposal for the room was produced by Isaac Ware. Based on a scheme published by Ware in Designs of Inigo Jones and others (1731), this was likewise unexecuted. The gallery remained an empty shell until 1775 when the second Duke of Leinster commissioned fresh designs from James Wyatt, and these are what can still be seen today. In that year, the duke married Emilia Olivia St George, only daughter and heiress of Usher St George, first Baron St George. The new duchess brought a substantial art collection with her, and the need to have a space in which these could be shown to best advantage gave a certain urgency to the matter. As executed, Wyatt’s proposals included inserting additional windows into the north side of an existing bow window (above which is a shallow half-dome) and dividing the shallow elliptical vault into three sections, all of which are decorated with elaborate neo-classical plasterwork. As described by Professor Christine Casey, the ceiling’s centre holds a chamfered octagon within a square and at each end a diaper within a square, each flanked by broad figurative lunette panels at the base of the coving and bracketed by husk garlands and garlands of leafy ovals. Between are ribs with attenuated tripods, urns and arabesque finials.’ The scheme’s coherence is illustrated by the inclusion of a pair of white marble chimneypieces with high-relief female figures on the uprights and putti marking the division between beaded spandrels enclosing urns and griffins, and then similar motifs being employed in pewter and gesso on the doors.





Following the Act of Union in 1800 and the death of the second duke four years later, Leinster House was scarcely used by the family and so in 1815 the third duke sold the property to the Dublin Society (later Royal Dublin Society). Many of the picture gallery’s contents were moved to the family’s country house, Carton House, County Kildare where alterations to accommodate the collection were made by Richard Morrison; many of the artworks were subsequently sold as the fortunes of the FitzGerald family declined in the last century. Meanwhile, the Dublin Society converted the room in which they were once displayed into a library, Francis Johnston inserting a gallery above the line of the window heads, although this was removed in the late 19th century. Following the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, the Dail was housed – temporarily, it was thought – in the RDS’s lecture theatre, a large hall which had been completed a quarter century earlier. In 1924, the society sold the entire property to the government for £68,000 and moved permanently to the site it still occupies in Ballsbridge. Leinster House’s former picture gallery was then adapted with virtually no structural alterations to accommodate the Seanad, which it has continued to do ever since.


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The Irish Sale of the Century



From the mid-1970s through to the early 1980s a series of country house contents auctions took place in Ireland, beginning with that held at Malahide Castle in May 1976. One of the last during that particular spate took place at Luttrellstown, County Dublin in September 1983. Luttrellstown has featured here before (see Luttrellstown Castle « The Irish Aesthete). The estate here dates back to c.1210 when it had been granted by King John to Sir Geoffrey de Luterel. Two centuries later the original castle was constructed and remained in the hands of the Luttrells until 1800 when sold to Luke White, who had made his fortune operating a lottery. White and his descendants were responsible for giving the house much of its external appearance as a frothy Gothick fancy, and they continued to occupy it until the early 1920s when it was once more put on the market. In November 1927 Aileen Guinness married the Hon Brinsley Plunket and as a wedding present her father Ernest Guinness presented the bride with  Luttrellstown Castle.





During the 14 years of their marriage, the Plunkets entertained extensively at Luttrellstown. However, following their divorce in 1940, the property’s chatelaine moved to the United States, only returning to this side of the Atlantic after the conclusion of the Second World War. Then, following her father’s death in March 1949, she embarked on a thorough restoration and transformation of the castle. In this enterprise, she was assisted by English architect and interior designer Felix Harbord, who also worked with Aileen Plunket’s sister, Maureen, Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava, at Clandeboye, County Down. At Luttrellstown, Harbord appears to have perfectly understood his client’s fondness for the dramatic and for unexpected juxtapositions. Hence the interiors were filled with treasures that had come from a diverse range of sources. The white marble chimneypiece in the ballroom, likely the work of Sir Henry Cheere, came from England, as did the painted ceiling by Thornhill installed in the staircase hall. The dining room was given Adamesque plasterwork and a ceiling by 18th century artist Jacob de Wit, and the Grisaille Room created to hold a series of nine panels by the Flemish painter Peter de Gree, originally made in 1788 for the Oriel Temple, County Louth. In this setting, Luttrellstown’s owner entertained frequently and lavishly. As late as 1966, when many other Irish houses had been forced to cut back on hospitality, Mark Bence-Jones could report, ‘Mrs Plunket entertains in the grand manner, giving large dinner parties, dances and balls; she invites people from all walks of life in Ireland together with many friends from abroad.’ He also noted that ‘what seems like an army of footmen, something very rare in Ireland, adds to the splendour.’





In 1983, Aileen Plunket, by then aged 79, decided to sell both Luttrellstown Castle and its contents: the latter were dispersed in a three-day auction held that September by Christie’s. Described by the late Desmond FitzGerald, Knight of Glin as the Irish Sale of the Century, the event attracted considerable publicity, and many overseas buyers,  eager to see what bargains might be found. In the event, there were no bargains as many lots went for much higher sums than their estimates. On the first day, for example, a pair of George II white painted side tables, expected to fetch £25-38,000, eventually went for £110,000. A pair of Italian gilt-bronze and crystal candelabra made £65,000, more than six times their estimate, while a mid-18th century giltwood stool fetched £28,000, more than nine times the estimate. A rare Russian tapestry carpet made for Tsar Nicholas I in 1835 went for £75,000 which was double its estimate: seemingly the underbidder on this lot was David Rockefeller. On the other hand, a suite of painted Louis XV furniture which may – or may not – have been made for the Château de Maintenon, failed to make the expected £170,000, selling for £134,000. On the second day of the auction, the focus was on paintings such as a set of four hunting scenes by Jacob van Strij (£69,120), The Mystic Marriage by Jan Brueghel II (£30,240)  and a portrait of Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth by Henri Gascars which fetched £27,000: Aileen Plunket had bought the picture eight years earlier at the Malahide Castle sale for £9,500. On the third day, books, porcelain, glass and so forth. With approximately one third of the buyers being Irish and the rest of the bidders coming from overseas, in total, the auction made a sum just shy of £3 million. Soon afterwards it was announced that the castle and 570 acre demesne had been sold for just over £3 million. Aileen Plunket then moved to England where she lived until her death in 1999. As for Luttrellstown Castle, it has since become a wedding and events venue (a certain well-known English former footballer and his wife were married there in 1999). 


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Disrobed



Tucked away in an eastern corner of a garden behind the former bishop’s palace in Kilkenny is this charming little pavilion. Its construction is attributed to the writer and antiquarian Richard Pococke who lived in the main house 1756-65 while serving as Bishop of Ossory (although some sources attribute it to Charles Este, who held the same office 1735-40, and then went on to commission a new episcopal palace in Waterford). Inside the single room pavilion is a chimneypiece flanked by arched plaster recesses, the walls on either side panelled in wood. A door on the south side formerly opened into a Doric colonnade which in turn led to a door in the north transept of St Canice’s Cathedral, thereby allowing the prelate to move from one building to the other without stepping outdoors: in the early 19th century, architectural purists decried the colonnade as being out of keeping with the medieval site and it was removed. As for the pavilion, it has long been called the Robing Room, suggesting this was where the bishop donned the appropriate garments before taking a service in the cathedral. More likely it was simply intended to be a summerhouse and indeed this was how the building was described by a later Bishop of Ossory, William Newcome who in 17775 wrote that it was ‘of a very good size with a fireplace, fit for drinking tea or a glass of wine.’ The Robing Room underwent restoration some 20 years ago when the palace, vacated by the Church of Ireland, was being prepared for its current occupant, the Irish Heritage Council.  


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A Pleasant Tudor Revival House of Medium Size


While several hundred Irish country houses were destroyed during the years of the War of Independence and Civil War, many more were subsequently lost over the following decades as owners found it impossible to maintain them in the face of rising prices and falling income. The late 1940s and 1950s were a particularly bad period for these properties. As early as 1932, the Irish Times had noted that ‘the dead hand of the state lies heavily on the great houses. Depleted incomes make their maintenance difficult enough, but high taxation and death duties render the passage of a great house from father to son almost impossible.’ In her 2019 book White Elephants: The Country House and the State in Independent Ireland, 1922-73, Emer Crooke notes that a large number of houses were just abandoned, with the removal of their roofs so that residential rates would not have to be paid. Furthermore, many such buildings that were destined for demolition suddenly became valuable, ‘not as residences, but as commodities. Houses were bought up for demolition by speculators interested in selling off valuable slates or lead from their roofs, while the Land Commission also demolished some houses on acquired lands, from which they could use the materials to build factories, roads and so on. Big Houses had become far more valuable and useful for their parts than when they were standing.’ Hence the enduring spectacle across the Irish countryside of skeletal remains, towering structures of which only the outer walls now remain. Such might have been the fate of Lisnavagh, County Carlow had its then-owners not decided on an alternative option to ensure at least part of the house continues to be a family home. 





Lisnavagh has been home to the Bunbury family since the 1660s when they moved to County Carlow as tenants of the first Duke of Ormond before purchasing the property in 1702. A plaque inside the present house shows that the original residence on the estate was built by William Bunbury in 1696. This survived for some 150 years until a new Lisnavagh was commissioned by Captain William McClintock-Bunbury who had inherited the property in 1846 following the death of his childless maternal uncle, Thomas Bunbury. Designs for a new house had been commissioned by William Bunbury from architect Oliver Grace in 1778 but following the client’s untimely death, the project was abandoned. Instead, a year after inheriting the estate, Captain McClintock-Bunbury asked Daniel Robertson to come up with a new scheme and this one went ahead. As with a number of Robertson’s other houses in this part of the country, Lisnavagh was constructed in a variant of the Tudor-Gothic style, heavily gabled and with many mullioned windows, all clad in local granite and finished for the sum of £16,000. The work took two and a half years to complete, during which time the same team of workers built new stables ,haylofts, farm buildings, a schoolhouse, several outbuildings, a walled garden, three miles of walls and a gate lodge. A contemporary report in the Farmer’s Gazette noted that ‘Every stone which was used in the various buildings — in the mansion house, the farmyards, demesne walls, and cottages — was dug out of the land, it being quite unnecessary to open a regular quarry, such was the abundance of stones in the land.’ A long, low building of two storeys, the house’s interior featured an abundance of reception and bedrooms which, by the middle of the last century were proving near-impossible to maintain. 





In September 1937 Lisnavagh was inherited by William McClintock-Bunbury, fourth Baron Rathdonnell who, ten years later and in the aftermath of the Second World War, was faced with the challenge of how to look after a very substantial house on a relatively small income. Initially he and his wife, the artist Pamela Drew, put the place up for sale: one potential purchaser was Evelyn Waugh, then travelling through Ireland in the hope of finding a home for himself and his family: he described Lisnavagh as a ‘practical Early Victorian Collegiate building.’ A buyer proving elusive, alternative solutions were sought, with Lady Rathdonnell consulting her uncle,  architect Aubyn Peart Robinson of Caroe & Partners, who suggested the house be reduced in size. Beginning in 1951, driven by the motto ‘Rejuvenate the Positive’, this is what happened. While Peart Robinson planned the operation, work was overseen by architect Alan Hope who ran a highly successful practice in Dublin. The decision was taken to keep the part of the house formerly acting as the service wing, not least because this had a basement, and to clear away the rest of the building which had hitherto held the main reception rooms. However, rather than just demolish a large chunk of Lisnavagh, the Rathdonnells had the granite stones of the western gable taken down by hand, numbered and then re-erected to create a new south-facing front. As a result of careful planning, when the project came to a conclusion in February 1954, rather than looking as though it had lost several limbs, the house gave the impression of having always had the same appearance. Outside, a porte-cochère previously only used by household staff became the main entrance, while indoors a library was created in what had been the old kitchen: in its new incarnation, this is today the finest room in the house, with carved oak shelving by Strahan & Co of Dublin, panels of Cordova leather and many family portraits. Lisnavagh might easily have joined the long sad list of lost Irish country houses but thanks to the clever initiative of its owners in the 1950s, it still stands today. Even more importantly, as Mark Bence-Jones noted in his guide to these properties (1978), ‘the surviving part of the house looks complete in itself; a pleasant Tudor Revival house of medium size rather than a rump of a larger house.’


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Little Changed


The origins of the Baker family in Ireland are unclear, but it would seem that Thomas Baker, an Englishman, came here and settled, likely in the first decades of the 17th century. Based in Knockordan, County Tipperary, he came to rent large areas of farmland in the vicinity, running to more than 3,730 acres, from local Roman Catholic owners. Disaster befell both them and their tenant in 1641 with the onset of the Confederate Wars: in the case of Baker and his family, they were besieged by the rebels and, following his death in February 1642, forced to surrender everything they had, down to their ‘wearing apparel’, before the family – a widow with six children – were turned out of doors. As for the owners of the land that Baker had rented, they too lost their property, divided up following the Down Survey in the following decade. However, because Thomas had loaned money to some of his landlords on the security of mortgages they had taken out against the properties he rented from them, his son Walter was able to lay claim to some of what had been lost and, in the years after the Restoration of 1660, the Bakers regained outright some of what had once been held only in leasehold. Thereafter they seem to have prospered and in October 1704, William Baker, a great-grandson of the original Thomas, purchased from Charles Blount – a grandson of one of the Down Survey commissioners – the lands on which Lismacue House now stands for the sum of £923. The original residence, long since gone, was one of the largest in this part of the country and with five hearths incurring a tax of 10 shillings, according to the 1665 hearth-money records.





Approached at the end of a long avenue of lime trees planted in the mid-18th century by Hugh Baker, the present house at Lismacue replaced an earlier residence elsewhere on the estate. This building was commissioned in 1813 by Hugh’s grandson William from Kilkenny architect William Robertson. However, the owner was not able to enjoy his new home for long because a short time later he was murdered. As reported by the Rev. William Burke in his History of Clonmel (1907), ‘The event, however, which stirred the county to its depths was the murder of William Baker of Lismacue. Returning from Cashel Sessions, November 27th, 1815, he was met by two men at the gates of Thomastown Park and shot through the head. Though a reward of £5,000 was offered, and though scores of suspected persons were lodged in the bridewells, the secret which was known to hundreds, was long kept and the efforts of the Crown baffled.’ Eventually, it seems, two men called Keating and Maher were imprisoned in Cahir where the former ‘through connivance or otherwise’, obtained some whisky which apparently loosened tongues. Their conversation being overheard, Keating was subsequently induced to give evidence, and Maher was hanged. Since the murdered man had no children, Lismacue was then inherited by his nephew, Hugh Baker who was still a minor at the time. He and his wife Marion Conyers were responsible for finishing the interiors now seen in the house. After his death in 1868, he was succeeded by his son, also called Hugh, but when the latter in turn died in 1887, the family almost lost everything as a result of needful land sales. Fortunately, the third Hugh’s widow, Frances Massy, remarried and her second husband, Major Ralph Bunbury, was able to buy Lismacue and the surrounding lands for what was described as a ‘low price’ so that the Bakers could continue to live there. Eventually, following the major’s death, his siblings transferred the place ‘on generous terms’ to one of the third Hugh’s sons, Charles Conyers Massy Baker. Today, Lismacue continues to be occupied by his descendants. 





Designed in a mildly Tudorbethan style, Lismacue’s exterior is ornamented with hood mouldings over the windows, and dainty crenellations and pinnacles along the roofline. Of two storeys over-basement, the facade is three bays wide, the centre bay distinguished by a single-storey limestone Gothick porch supported by columns. A service wing to the immediate north looks as though it concludes in a chapel, since the gable here holds a large arched window with Gothick tracery. However, this is illusory, since the interior is divided into several floors. Inside, the same restrained use of Gothick ornament prevails, but the overall tone is late Georgian classical. Many of the main reception rooms still contain wallpapers first hung in the 1830s and indeed, the charm of Lismacue is precisely that, ever since built, successive owners have never been in a position to undertake largescale alterations. Little changed since first constructed, in spirit and style, it still retains the style and spirit of an early 19th century Irish country house.

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At Peace


The Echlin family has been mentioned here before (see Lost Heritage « The Irish Aesthete). The first of them to settle in Ireland was Robert Echlin, a Scots-born clergyman who in 1612 was appointed Bishop of Down and Connor by James I. His great-grandson Henry Echlin, a judge and bibliophile, was created a baronet four years prior to his death in 1725. The family continued to thrive for a period, but already before the end of the 18th century, much of their fortune had been dissipated and by the time the third baronet died in 1799 without a direct male heir, not a great deal remained. Nevertheless, in circumstances reminiscent of Bleak House’s Jarndyce V Jarndyce, in 1827 the fourth baronet, Sir James Echlin became involved in a complex legal dispute. By the time the matter eventually concluded in 1850, Sir James was dead and legal fees had swallowed up all the money. As Sir Bernard Burke noted in Vicissitudes of Families, Volume II (1869), ‘the litigation went on year after year; the lawyers enjoyed it amazingly; they chuckled and punned, and cracked jokes about it. To them it was food and raiment; to the Echlin family, death and destitution.’ Sir Bernard went on to quote a letter written in June 1860 by the Rector of Carbury, County Kildare concerning the fifth baronet, Sir Frederick Echlin, who lived in the parish: ‘Sir Frederick can neither read nor write, and his brother is also quite an illiterate and uneducated man…He is now upwards of seventy, and utterly destitute, his only means of support being two shillings and sixpence a week, which I allow him out of our collection for the poor, together with occasional donations from Christian persons in this neighbourhood, and contributions which I get for him from my friends’ Since he was unmarried, the baronetcy passed to his younger brother Fenton, who also lived in County Kildare, ‘deriving his only support from contributions from his sons, very deserving young men, one a Policeman, another a private in the Life Guards, and the third a Footman.’ The policeman, a sergeant in the Royal Irish Constabulary and based in the Phoenix Park in Dublin, in due course became Sir Thomas Echlin, seventh baronet. Aside from the title, he inherited little  other than some family memorabilia, including a number of portraits, an oak box containing parchments, records, and deeds to the former estates and a sword used by Lieutenant General Robert Echlin at the Battle of the Boyne. The last of the baronets, Sir Norman Echlin, died on the Isle of Wight in April 2007. 





Not all members of the Echlin family suffered such serious reversals of fortune. In December 1804 Anne Echlin, described as a spinster and living in a house on St Stephen’s Green, Dublin died and left a will indicating that she owned property in County Galway, ‘estates in the North of Ireland’ and an estate in County Carlow. While the Galway and Northern Irish estates went to two cousins, Dublin barrister George Vesey and the Rev. George Vesey, the Carlow land was bequeathed to Robert Marshall and then to his wife Frances Marshall, a sister of the Rev George Vesey. The Veseys were cousins of Anne Echlin, her grandmother Frances Vesey having married Robert Echlin. However the Marshalls did not receive their inheritance outright since the will specified, ‘I have let to my friend Clement Wolsely, Esq., the house and demesne of Sandbrook, part of said Carlow estate, consisting of 165 acres for 61 years at the annual rent of 40/- by the acre, which agreement is to be confirmed.’ Just a few years later, in 1808 the Marshalls sold the entire property formerly owned by Anne Echlin, running to some 500 acres and including Sandbrook, for £488. The new owner was Robert Browne of nearby Browne’s Hill (see Escaping the Wreckers’ Ball « The Irish Aesthete) and while the Wolseleys continued to own and occupy Sandbrook until at least the middle of the 19th century, by 1888 it was occupied by Robert Clayton Browne. However, early in the 20th century, it belonged to an army man, Colonel (later Brigadier General) Bridges George Lewis before becoming home to Brigadier Arthur George Rolleston. In 1960 he sold the house and 85 acres to John and Mary Allnatt. Sandbrook was then inherited by Mrs Allnatt’s son before being bought in 1997 by the present owner, Christopher Bielenberg, who now lives there with his wife, interior designer Arabella Huddart.  





From the exterior, Sandbrook looks like a larger house than proves to be the case, the main body of the building being just one room deep. This suggests an early date of construction, likely during the first quarter of the 18th century when the building was only of five bays and two storeys over basement, a further two bays being added at either side in the 19th century, perhaps when owned and occupied by the Brownes. The central breakfront bay is delineated by quoins and features a pediment incorporating an oculus. Below, the simple granite doorcase (its more substantial lintel again being a later insertion) gives access to the panelled entrance hall with fluted Ionic pilasters and doors with shouldered architraves. A gable-ended extension to the rear accommodates the staircase with shallow treads and fluted balusters.  The reception rooms opening on either side of the hall are more simply designed, although they all have fine chimneypieces of various dates. As seen today, Sandbrook, which is available for hire for the likes of family gatherings or weddings, is relaxed, comfortable and peaceful. Hard to believe that it might ever have been associated, however tangentially, with the turmoil of the Echlin family.


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Remembrance of Things Past



Recently going through the ever-expanding collection of photographs, the Irish Aesthete came across a cache, taken some years ago and showing Drummin, County Kildare. Until his death five years ago, this house was home to the hospitable Grattan de Courcy Wheeler, whose many lunches and dinners, prepared by an ever-loyal housekeeper Mary, were renowned for their length and liveliness. Grattan was a throwback to the kind of 18th century landed gentleman described with various degrees of delight and disapproval by the likes of Sir Jonah Barrington, Arthur Young and many others. Drummin too seemed to belong to an earlier age, certainly many modern comforts were not to be found there but that rarely deterred guests from accepting an invitation to visit and, if the evening went on too late (and the claret was poured too liberally), to stay overnight. 





Its name derived from the Irish Droim Mín, meaning ‘Little Ridge of a Hill’, Drummin dates from the mid-18th century, a lease for some 580 acres of land here being taken out in 1746 by the Rev Richard Grattan: in 1840 this lease would be renewed for three lives by his grandson Dr Richard Grattan. The Grattans of Drummin were related to Ireland’s famous parliamentary patriot, Henry Grattan, both branches seemingly descended from the Rev Patrick Grattan of Belcamp, County Dublin: two of the Rev Patrick’s sons, Robert and John, also both clergymen, were executors of the will of Jonathan Swift, a family friend. As for Drummin, the original house was of two storeys over basement and with a rendered facade of three bays (five bays to the garden front). It is thought that the centre breakfront originally contained the main entrance to the building (where an arched window is now) but in the 19th century single bay extensions were added to either side, that to the north containing a new entrance hall. According to legend, when the house was first being constructed, a curse was put on the place that no eldest son would succeed his father, and indeed this is what came to pass while the Grattans owned the property. The aforementioned Dr Richard Grattan, a distinguished Dublin physician, had two sons, one of whom died at the age of 15, the other at the age of 22. Drummin was therefore inherited by the doctor’s daughters, Anne and Elizabeth, and, following the former’s death, the house and estate, which by then ran to 2,000 acres, passed to Robert ‘Diamond’ de Courcy Wheeler, a doctor who served as Chief Medical Officer to the British army in Malta during the First World War. 





Robert de Courcy Wheeler does not appear to have spent too much time in Drummin, living for many years in south Dublin. In 1939 the property was inherited by his son, Cecil de Courcy Wheeler who, when the Land Commission broke up the old estate, established a successful mushroom growing business on what land he still retained. In due course, Drummin passed to his son, Grattan and following the latter’s retirement from many years working in banking in England and the United States, he settled in the house and, as already mentioned, embarked on some two decades of entertaining his wide circle of friends. Little was done to the place, with rooms always rather higgledy-piggledy and heating something of a rarity: on winter nights, guests could be found jostling for a place in front of the drawing room fire. Some time after Grattan de Courcy’s death, Drummin was sold. Now in new ownership, no doubt it will undergo some changes and necessary improvements. But these pictures are a souvenir of how it used to look, a remembrance of things past.



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One of the Prettiest and Most Striking Objects to be seen on the River Lee


‘About half-past two o’clock on Tuesday morning, Blackrock Castle was observed to be on fire, and in a few minutes presented a very imposing sight. The waters were illuminated, and the surrounding hills completely lit, presenting more the appearance of noon-day than of a dark night. Immediately after the cupola blazed with the greatest splendour, the heavy leads caught fire and sent to the river a liquid body of burning lead, the concussion between the red-hot lead and water sending forth a crash resembling the noise of artillery; the rain which fell about the time on the burning lead roof, yielding a noise like the fire of musketry. The whole presented a grand and awful sight, and continued burning with unabated fury for upwards of three hours. The roof has completely disappeared, and the timbers in the wall were burning this morning at seven o’clock. Fortunately, the inmates escaped unhurt. Had the wind been in another direction, the surrounding houses would probably have been destroyed. The fire is supposed to have been caused by a slate having broken the glass of the river light which is kept on Blackrock Castle for the use of ships, and the fire caught the roof.’
Dublin Morning Register, March 2nd 1827. 





Located on a limestone outcrop in the river Lee to the immediate east of Cork city, Blackrock Castle was originally built in the early 1580s and maintained by the local burghers according to a contemporary document, ‘to resist pirates and other invasion’ (it should be remembered that as late as 1631, the coastal village of Baltimore, further to the west was sacked by pirates and more than 100 of its residents carried off into slavery in Algiers). The first castle was little more than a watch tower which also served to help guide ships into Cork harbour. However, in the early 17th century, Ireland’s Lord Deputy Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy caused the building to be enlarged and reinforced, with walls over seven feet thick and the main circular tower having a diameter of some 34 and a half feet. Returned by James I to the citizenry of Cork in 1608,  this structure held artillery intended to repel any would-be invaders venturing up the river. In 1722, the castle was damaged by fire and, according to Charles Smith’s Ancient and Present State of the County and City of Cork (1750), the corporation spent £296 refurbishing the building, this work including the creation of ‘a very handsome octagon room, from whence is a delightful prospect of the harbour, from Passage to Cork.’ Here, according to Smith, ‘the mayors of Cork hold an admiralty court, being, by several charters, appointed admirals of the harbour.’ In addition, on the first day of August each year, the mayor and corporation held an ‘entertainment’ in the building, ‘at the charge of the city.’ Such remained the case until February 27th when a serious fire, as described above in the Dublin Morning Register, largely destroyed the old castle. 




In December 1827, Cork Corporation voted a sum of £800, and the Harbour Commissioners a further £200 towards the cost of rebuilding Blackrock Castle. The job was entrusted to architect siblings James and George Pain, both pupils of John Nash,  who had each come to Ireland during the previous decade and established thriving practices. As designed by the Pains and completed within two years, Blackrock Castle looks like a medieval fortress, its dominant feature being a large circular tower to which is attached a much more slender and somewhat taller turret: the latter continued to have navigation lights on its roof to aid shipping. Around the tower, a series of battlemented walls enclose a courtyard, helping to confirm the image of a romantic gothic castle. Despite being described in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society in 1914 as ‘one of the prettiest and most striking objects to be seen on the river Lee’, the building thereafter suffered from neglect for much of the last century,. It was leased to a professor of botany in the 1930s and then sold in the 1960s to a group of local businessmen, after which it served as a bar, a restaurant,  commercial offices and, for one period, as a private residence. In 2001 Blackrock Castle was bought back by Cork Corporation for IR£825,000 and a programme of restoration was undertaken. For almost 20 years, the building has housed an observatory run by Munster Technological University and laboratories staffed by astronomical researchers from the same institution. Although open to the public and hosting exhibitions, because the castle always served practical purposes, internally there is little of decorative interest, other than a fine limestone chimneypiece from the second quarter of the 17th century and originally in a since-demolished house called Ronayne’s Court. Better to rejoice in the handsome exterior, with the waters of the river Lee washing against a sequence of towers and turrets.


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First Fruits



Glebe: land granted to a member of the clergy as part of a benefice. Etymology: derives from the Middle English word ‘glebe’, which in turn came from the Old French ‘glèbe’, and ultimately from the Latin word ‘gleba’ or ‘glaeba’, meaning ‘clod of earth’ or ‘soil’.
As indicated above, glebes were parcels of land provided for members of the clergy within the parish for which they were responsible. And, in the post-Reformation period, clergymen of the Established Church were supposed to be provided with suitable residences on that land. However, for various reasons, not least lay impropriations of former church property during the upheavals of the late 16th and 17th centuries, by 1700 many parishes suffered from a want of glebe land and glebe houses alike. In consequence, they were unable to support a resident clergyman. In order to have an adequate income, some clerics came to hold a number of benefices, but only reside in one of them, leading to inevitable neglect of the others and to complaints that parishes (and parishioners) were suffering from a want of attention. In 1693 Bishop Dopping of Meath suggested one reason for widespread clerical non-residence lay in ‘the want of Gleabs in some places, and in all the decay of manse houses by the frequent Warrs in the Kingdome.’ Similarly, in 1720 Bishop Henry Downes of Elphin wrote that there was only one clerical residence within his diocese, and that was occupied by the dean. As a result, he declared, clergymen who wanted to live within their parishes, ‘generally take little Farms that they may have within themselves all Necessarys…they for ye most part want Glebes to build on, what they had of yt kind being very much swallowed up in Connaught during ye times of Rebellion & Confusion.’ 





By the start of the 18th century, the pitiful plight of the Established Church in Ireland, especially the poor state of its churches and clerical residences, led to the establishment by government in 1711 of the Board of First Fruits; its equivalent in England, set up seven years earlier, was known as Queen Anne’s Bounty. The board directed that the first fruits or ‘annates’ – that is the first year’s income of a clergyman occupying a new position – were paid into a fund which was then used to build or restore churches and glebe houses, as well as purchase appropriate glebe lands. During the first 70 years of its existence, the board purchased glebe lands for benefices around the country at a total cost of £3,543. In addition, it assisted the building of forty-five glebe houses with gifts of £4,080. These figures greatly increased from 1791 thanks to annual parliamentary grants. Over the following 12 years, the Board of First Fruits spent £55,600 on building 88 churches and 116 glebe houses. The sums grew larger in the decades following the Act of Union and further government grants: in total, £807,648 was provided to purchase glebe lands in 193 benefices, with the construction of 550 glebe houses, and building, rebuilding or enlargement of 697 churches. By 1832 some 829 glebe houses had been built across Ireland, but this activity came largely to a halt the following year with the passing of the Church Temporalities Act, which led to the functions and income of the Board of First Fruits being passed to a new body, the Board of Ecclesiastical Commissioners. 





Today’s pictures show the former glebe house of the parish of Rathkeale, County Limerick. In his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837), Samuel Lewis advised that the building had been constructed in 1819 ‘by aid of a gift of £100, and a loan of £1500 from the late Board of First Fruits.’ Furthermore, the glebe lands ran to 10 acres, half of them attached to the glebe house, the other half adjoining an earlier clerical residence closer to the centre of the town. The glebe house’s first occupant was Charles Warburton, Rector of Rathkeale, as well as Chancellor of the Diocese of Limerick (and indeed, Rector of Clonmel, County Tipperary). Warburton’s family background is curious. His paternal grandfather, Dominic Mungan (1715-1774) was a famous blind harpist from County Tyrone. The youngest of Mungan’s three sons, Terence Mongan, originally trained to become a Roman Catholic priest but appears to have converted to the Anglican faith after being appointed a chaplain of the 62nd Regiment of Foot in the British army during the American War of Independence. Changing his name to Charles Mongan, he subsequently married a well-connected New Yorker Frances Marston, with whom he had four sons. The couple and their children returned to Ireland in 1786 where Mongan, who adopted the surname Warburton by royal licence in 1792, enjoyed rapid promotion within the Established Church, serving as Dean of Ardagh and then Clonmacnoise before being appointed Bishop of Limerick in 1806. He would be translated to Cloyne in 1820, dying in office six years later. It was his third son, likewise called Charles, born in New York in 1780, who was the first resident of the new Rathkeale glebe house, a handsome square block of two storeys over basement, with a three-bay east-facing facade, the central doorcase having fan and sidelights. The property also has adjacent yards, with coach houses and stabling for eight horses, as well as a walled garden running to more than an acre. The original 19th century Ordnance Survey map shows that there were once two gate lodges, one to the north, the other to the east, but are now lost. Internally, the house conforms to what would be expected of a rural residence of the period, the most striking decorative feature being the staircase hall, divided into two parts by a screen of Ionic columns. Long since sold by the Church of Ireland, the former glebe house is privately owned and much cherished by its current proprietor.



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