Tag Archives: Historic Interiors

Beautifully Situated on a Fine Declivity


Mount Juliet, County Kilkenny dates from the 1760s when commissioned by Somerset Butler, 8th Viscount Ikerrin and 1st Earl of Carrick from an unknown architect. Located on an estate he had bought towards the end of the previous decade. The house sits on high ground above the river Nore and across from Ballylinch, a property which had anciently belonged to the monks of Jerpoint Abbey and which had passed through a number of hands before being inherited by Eleanor Redman, who married James Butler, third viscount Ikerrin: they were the paternal grandparents of Somerset Butler. The original name of the land on which Mount Juliet stands was Oldtown but this was changed to Waton’s Grove, after the Waton family who lived there until they forfeited their property in the aftermath of the Cromwellian settlement. It then passed through a succession of owners, including James II, until finally being purchased by Somerset Butler, probably in the late 1750s: a bridge over the river in front of the house carries the inscription, ‘This bridge was built at the private expense of Somerset Hamilton Earl of Carrick in the year 1762.’ Having acquired the place, he chose to call it Mount Juliet, after his wife, Lady Juliana Boyle, a daughter of the first Earl of Shannon. 





When Arthur Young visited Mount Juliet  in 1776, he described it as ‘beautifully situated on a fine declivity on the banks of the Nore, commanding some extensive plantations that spread over the hills, which rise in a various manner on the other side the river: a knole of lawn rises among them, with artificial ruins upon it…’ Another visitor in 1818 describes walking around ‘the flower gardens and to the green house which is on an uncommon plan and then round the back lawn, which is very pretty, well wooded with pretty oak between the boles of which is a beautiful view of distant woods and hills and here and there a reach of the river.’ However, the writer thought the house ‘very large, old fashioned and not pretty,’ although he did allow that it seemed ‘comfortable and convenient.’ 





Designed by an unknown architect, Mount Juliet is of three storeys over-basement. The house originally faced north-east looking down towards the river with a seven bay facade between two shallow curved bows with arched windows on two storeys. The central breakfront has Venetian windows on the two upper storeys above a tripartite pedimented and fan-lit doorway (since enclosed within a porch). There is a perron and double steps in front of the door, with iron railings  At the start of the last century, the entrance was moved to the other side of the building, with a single-bay three-storey projecting entrance bay added. Much of the interior decoration was commissioned by the second earl, Henry Thomas Butler, who inherited the estate in 1774, also the year in which he was married. The main reception rooms have splendid plasterwork, again by unknown hands, although in the style of Michael Stapleton,not least the dining room, the walls of which are lined with medallions enclosing classical figures in relief and surrounded by delicate garlands of grape leaves. But each room has its own distinctive character, as well as a variety of fine marble chimneypieces, many of which were installed when the house underwent alterations in first decades of the last century. The second earl was also responsible for the entrance hall dominated by an Imperial staircase supported by a screen of fluted Ionic columns. When the house’s orientation was altered at the start of the last century, a room was added immediately beyond the stairs’ return. 





While the first two Earls of Carrick appear to have lived within their means, the same cannot be said of the third. Soon after he died in 1838, leaving two infant sons, an auction was held at Mount Juliet where lots on offer included ‘the entire household furniture, plate, and plated ware, valuable paintings, books, piano forte, china, glass, &c.; as well as horses, carriages, farming implements and all livestock. Then in 1852, a large part of the family’s land, ‘‘upwards of 7,000 acres statute measure’ was sold by the court for the Sale of Incumbered Estates in Ireland, the auction realising a total of £40,200. By this date, all that remained was the townland of Mount Juliet and its house, which had been inherited by the fifth earl, Somerset Arthur Butler, who entered the Grenadier Guards as an ensign in 1856 and took part in the Crimean War, retiring from service as a captain in 1862. Unmarried, seemingly in later years he became a recluse and following his death in 1901 is said to have left much of his personal fortune to the Plymouth Brethren of which he was a member. Title and what remained of the estate then passed to a cousin, Major Charles Henry Butler, who never lived in the property but passed it on to his eldest son, the future seventh earl who in turn leased Mount Juliet to the wealthy General Sir Hugh McCalmont. 





Just before the outbreak of the First World War, General Sir Hugh McCalmont bought Mount Juliet from the seventh Earl of Carrick. The McCalmonts were responsible for carrying out a number of alterations to the house, not least changing its orientation and creating a ballroom in one of the wings. The family remained at Mount Juliet until 1988 when they in turn sold the property. Since then it has operated as a luxury hotel with a Michelin starred restaurant. Over the past year, the hotel’s new owners have undertaken an extensive restoration and redecoration of the house.


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Of Napoleon’s Toothbrush and Other Matters


One of the oldest institutions in this country, the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland dates back to 1654, although its first royal charter was granted by Charles II in 1667. The man behind this initiative was John Stearne who, like many other characters during this period, was able to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances and thereby survive and even flourish. Born in County Meath in 1624, Stearne had attended Trinity College Dublin and became a scholar there, but left without taking a degree around the onset of the Confederate Wars in 1641, when he moved to England. There he spent time first in Cambridge and then Oxford, returning to Ireland a decade after he had left it and becoming a fellow of Trinity College Dublin. The university had been given a dilapidated building on nearby Dame Street by the city’s corporation but lacked funds to restore it: In 1654 Stearne persuaded college authorities to hand the property over to him, on the understanding that he would convert it ‘unto the sole and proper use of physicians’ where he would act as life president. It says much about his persuasive charm that Stearne’s proposal should have been accepted, that he then managed to secure donations for the building’s refurbishment before riding, seemingly without problems, over the transition from Commonwealth to Restoration, and then ensure that the organisation he had established should receive royal approbation. Two years after this was achieved, Stearne died just days before his 45 birthday (one wonders whether he was familiar with the maxim ‘physician heal thyself’). Happily, the college survived. Initially it was known as the Fraternity of Physicians of Trinity Hall, but after receiving a second royal charter from William III and Mary II in 1692 , it was renamed the King and Queen’s College of Physicians in Ireland, retaining this title until 1890 when the present title was formally adopted. Once the direct link with Trinity College was broken following the grant of a second charter, the physicians became homeless and this remained the case for more than the next century, meeting in the homes of successive Presidents. However, a hospital opened on Dublin’s Grand Canal Street funded by a substantial legacy the College of Physicians had received from Sir Patrick Dun following his death almost 100 years earlier in 1713. This hospital, named after Dun, included a meeting room and accommodation for the college’s library, but  in the new hospital. Nevertheless, the physicians still wanted their own substantial premises, and this finally became possible in 1860 when the Kildare Street Club, which had occupied a couple of houses on Kildare Street since the 1780s, offered to sell these buildings to the College.






Just four months after taking possession of its new home, the college suffered a setback when the Kildare Street buildings were almost entirely destroyed by fire. Fortunately, the property was insured and this meant that the physicians, instead of having to spend money adapting what had once been two private residences into a public institution could instead start afresh with a building designed for their specific purposes. Six architects were invited to submit proposals, the winner of the commission being William G Murray, whose practice was responsible for many banks, insurance companies, railway stations and so forth. While the facade of the college underwent some modifications when the original sandstone was replaced by Portland stone in 1964, inside remains much as it looked when first completed in 1864, Professor Christine Casey noting that today the building’s sequence of rooms ‘is among the best-preserved Victorian interiors in the city.’ A flight of steps in the vestibule leads to the top-lit, double-height stair hall with grand imperial staircase: this space introduces visitors to a long processional axis running like a spine through the centre of the building. At the top of the staircase and occupying the entire street frontage is the library, originally conceived as two spaces, a library and a museum, but now one room lit by five windows. Meanwhile, down off the central landing, a long colonnaded corridor leads to the first of two great meeting rooms, the Graves Hall. This was part of Murray’s original design, a double-height space lwith ribbed coved ceiling, the walls of which are lined with Corinthian pilasters between which hang a collection of portraits on the west wall and twin light windows on the east. At the north and south ends and flanking the chimneypieces are white marble statues on plinths: these represent four former presidents of the college, including Sir Dominic Corrigan who was responsible for negotiating the purchase of the site and the fund-raising required after the fire. Corrigan can also be given the credit for a further extension to the building, this time designed by McCurdy Mitchell in 1873.  This area at the rear of the old houses had previously been filled by the Kildare Street Club with a racquet court and other rooms. Another long barrell-vaulted and colonnade corridor now led to the second great hall, today named after Corrigan, its walls lined with a further collection of portraits. 






The RCPI is home to many extraordinary objects. The library, for example, contains over 20,000 books, pamphlets and journals, primarily but not exclusively focussed on medicine, including Sir Patrick Dun’s own library, bequeathed to the college in 1713. Likewise many of the portraits, busts and statues represent doctors and physicians, but not all of them. There are medical instruments dating back to the 18th century and later. Then there is the extraordinary Quin Tassie collection, consisting of 26 drawers of more than 1,700 miniature gem casts and moulds imitating antique models and believed to have been created in the 18th century by the internationally renowned Scottish gem engraver James Tassie working with his mentor and patron, Irish physician Henry Quin; it was donated by his family to the college in 1926. Finally, and perhaps most extraordinary of all the items held by the college, is Napoleon Bonaparte’s toothbrush. As is well known, when the former emperor was exiled to the island of St Helena, he was attended by an Irish doctor, Barry O’Meara. He had served as a surgeon with the British Army in Egypt and Sicily, before being court-martialled for acting as a second in a duel in Sicily. O’Meara then entered the Royal Navy as an assistant surgeon, ending up in St Helena where, according to Napoleon in Exile: or, A Voice from St. Helena, a best-selling memoir he published in 1822 a year after the emperor’s death, O’Meara was bequeathed various mementoes, including the aforementioned toothbrush with a silver gilt handle stamped with the letter ‘N’. Today, it can be viewed, along with much else, in the Royal College of Physicians. 


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An Impression of Grandeur and Picturesqueness



For many years, the Irish Aesthete has driven past a castle in County Tipperary and wondered about its history. No need to wonder any more: the Irish Penny Journal, Vol.1, No.44, published in May 1841 carries a long and somewhat rambling account of the history of this building, Ardfinnan Castle. It stands on the site of, or close to, a religious settlement said to have been established in the seventh century by Saint Finian (hence the name Ard Fhíonáin, meaning ‘Fíonán’s height’). The journal’s anonymous author comments that ‘the traveller must have been a dull and unobserving one who, journeying between Cork and Dublin by way of Cahir, has not had his attention roused by its romantic features and an impression of its grandeur and picturesqueness made upon his memory, not easily to be effaced. Ardfinnan is indeed one of the finest scenes of its kind to be found in Ireland, and is almost equally imposing from every point of view from which it can be viewed. The Castle crowns the summit of a lofty and precipitous rock, below and around which the Suir winds it way in graceful beauty, while its banks are connected by a long and level bridge of fourteen arches which tradition states is of coeval erection with the fortress and which, at all events, is of very great antiquity. On every side the most magnificent outlines of mountain scenery form the distant back-ground; and every object which meets the eye is in perfect harmony with the general character of the scene.’ Rather like the river Suir, the text further meanders before explaining that Ardfinnan Castle was constructed in 1185 by Prince John, ‘of whom it has been remarked that he achieved nothing during his stay of eight months in Ireland but the construction of this and two other castles, namely Lismore and Tiobrad Fachtna, now Tibraghny on the Suir, which he erected with a view to the conquest of Munster. From these castles he sent parties in various directions to plunder the country; but being met by the Irish under the command of Donall O’Brien, Dermod Mac Carthy and Roderick O’Conor, they were defeated with great slaughter, four knights having been killed at Ardfinnan, after which John was glad to return to England.’ 






When the Irish Penny Journal text appeared, Ardfinnan Castle had fallen into ruin but serious damage to the building had only occurred in the 17th century. Long before then, the castle had a close association with monastic military orders,  first the Knights Templar and then the Knights Hospitaller. Ardfinnan’s first Governor, the Cambro-Norman knight Maurice de Prendergast, was also Grand Prior of the Knights Hospitaller in Ireland and in 1177 he had granted Prendergast Castle and surrounding land in his native Pembrokeshire to the order. A large circular keep immediately inside the castle’s bawn wall and beside the main gateway is said to have been constructed by the Knights Hospitaller in the early 13th century. Alterations occurred c.1450 when a square, four storey tower house was built on the south-east corner, directly above the river. The military order remained here until the upheavals of the 16th century, after which it passed through several different hands, at one point both Theobold Butler, Lord Caher and the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore disputing rights of ownership. The real trouble began during the Confederate Wars when the castle was held by its Governor, Captain David Fitzgibbon, a descendant of the White Knights and married to the widowed Joanna Butler, member of the area’s most powerful family. In early February 1659 Fitzgibbon was resident in Ardfinnan with a small force when it came under attack by the Cromwellian general Henry Ireton. Initially he was able to hold out, but once Ireton brought cannon onto a hill opposite the castle, its walls were breached his troops were able to gain access, and Fitzgibbon obliged to surrender: while his life was spared, his lands were confiscated and he was transplanted to the west of Ireland. Meanwhile, before Ireton’s army moved on and in order to ensure the castle could not fall back into the opposition’s hands, it was deliberately left in a state of semi-ruin. By 1654, the property had once again returned into the possession of the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, and was leased to another member of the extensive Butler family. Despite its poor condition, once more because of its position above the river Suir and owing to the ongoing threat of a French invasion, in 1795 the British government began to use the castle as an army barracks and continued to do so until 1802. 






In Samuel Lewis’s invaluable Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837), the castle at Ardfinnan is described as a ruin occupying a picturesque and elevated site above the Suir, consisting of a fortified gateway and the greater part of the exterior walls which, then as now, are roughly parallelogram in form. Engravings, such as that published in the Irish Penny Journal four years later, show Lewis’s summary description to be correct. This might have remained the case, had not a branch of the Prendergast family, thought to be descendants of Maurice de Prendergast, first Governor of the castle, taken on the property along with 15 surrounding acres. Theresa Cornwallis J West, in her book A Summer Visit to Ireland in 1846 (1847), wrote that she saw ‘scaffolding and ladders, and workmen busily repairing the damages of time; building up walls and putting in windows.’ Much of what can be seen today therefore dates from this period, when the old castle became a family home. The interiors, with their stone chimneypieces and stained glass in some of the windows, represent the taste of the mid-19th century. Meanwhile, immediately below and beside the Suir, John Mulcahy, whose father-in-law owned a similar business elsewhere in the county at Rossmore, developed a woollen mill which had ancient origins, believed to date back at least to the era when the 12th century. For a long time, the building was hugely successful, employing large numbers of local people and exporting tweeds across the world: when Edward VII – who already wore Ardfinnan cloth – came to stay at Lismore Castle in 1904, he paid a visit to the mill. It continued in operation until 1973 when the mills closed down, many of its buildings now standing empty. More than half a century earlier the Mulcahys had bought the castle and made further alterations, including the addition of a flat-roofed wing at the south-west corner as well as rewiring and plumbing the property, adding bathrooms and a heating system. While remedial work has recently been undertaken on the main roof and elsewhere, little has otherwise changed, as the castle and some 17 acres of surrounding land now come up for sale. This is such an important building, with such a long and remarkable history, that it deserves to find a sympathetic new owner, one who will appreciate the necessity of ensuring Ardfinnan Castle’s future. It took many years for the Irish Aesthete to see the place, but this was well worth the wait.



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A Reawakening


Regular visitors to this site will know that the Irish Aesthete is always delighted to learn of an historic property undergoing restoration, especially when this work is being tackled by private owners who intend to make the property a family home. Such is the case with the building seen here today: Knockelly Castle, County Tipperary. They have written a brief but helpful account of the site, which is reproduced below.  




‘Knockelly is reputed to have been built by Edmund Fitz James Butler, 8th Baron Dunboyne for his second son Piers, with work commencing in c.1465. The castle remained within various lines of the Butler family until 1592, when Peter Oge Butler rebelled against the crown, and Knockelly was granted to Patrick Grant, a nominee of the 10th Earl of Ormond. By 1602, Knockelly was the property of Sir John Everard (d.1624), who was most likely responsible for the c1610 renovations. Everard was admitted to the Inner Temple in London in 1578, called to the bar in 1590, but returned to Ireland and had been made Justice of the Liberty of Tipperary by 1601.
Knockelly was retained within Everard lines until Sir Redmond Everard, 4th Baronet, supported the failed Jacobite rising of 1715 and had to flee to France where he lived out his days. During Sir Redmond’s exile, funds were short and Knockelly was occupied by a series of notable tenants, including the Jolly’s, the Lowes and the O’Callaghans, until the castle and entire Everard patrimony, was acquired by Thomas Barton, a powerful wine merchant, in c.1751.
The Barton estate included Grove, an important house and lands to the south, and Knockelly may have served as an agent’s house for the estate. It is believed the 1830 renovations to the Gatehouse may have happened then. Knockelly was eventually let to James Kickham, one of whose daughters, Catherine, married a Patrick Heffernan. The Bartons, whose estate had been reduced from 5,000 to 500 acres, sold Knockelly between 1904-1906 to the Heffernans, who lived there until the present owners purchased the property in 2020.’




Across more than 550 years, Knockelly has served a variety of roles ranging from a magnate’s stronghold to a land agent’s residence and, prior to its present owners taking possession, a very substantial farmyard. But over that long period of time, it has been in the custodianship of just five families and perhaps this helps to explain why so much of the original structures have survived, not least the great tower house which last underwent remodelling in 1610. This stands within an expansive bawn which was built in 1560, the still-intact walls incorporating gun turrets, bartizans and, on the south side, a gatetower. The last of these began as a simple two storey building through which access was gained to the interior of the enclosure. Over time this was enlarged and embellished, most recently in 1830, and turned into a house but evidence of its earliest function can still be found inside along with other tantalising hints of the house’s gradual evolution. Indeed, as the owners note, ‘the diverse range of buildings, built in different centuries, from different fabric and designed for different functions’, means that Knockelly offers a rare insight into social and architectural changes through the centuries in Ireland since the late Middle Ages.




When the present owners bought Knockelly Castle six years ago, the majority of buildings on the site were in a semi-ruinous condition, as is the case in so many other locations throughout Ireland. And, without intervention since the property’s purchase, it is most likely that further and perhaps irreversible deterioration would have taken place. Thankfully that has not been the case and instead since 2022 a programme of gradual restoration has been underway, not least with the gatetower house which is now a family home. Work is slow, dependent on funds being available, and using materials and techniques which are most sensitive and appropriate to the structures. Employing primarily stone, wood and lime, and engaging with craftspeople trained in traditional skills, Knockelly is reawakening and being brought back to full use. As the owners emphasise, ‘there are no quick fixes. We work for the long-term.’ Benefitting from their own knowledge and that of the workers with whom they engage, they now run a number of onsite traditional building skills workshops so that anyone else interested in undertaking a similar project can benefit from their experience. Knockelly Castle was the deserved recipient of the 2026 Historic Houses of Ireland Heritage Award 2026, sponsored by Castleacre Insurance. 


For more information about the workshops run at Knockelly Castle, please see: Knockelly Conservation Workshops — Knockelly Castle

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A Ducal Birthplace


There has sometimes been confusion over the likely birthplace in Dublin of the Hon Arthur Wellesley, future Duke of Wellington, since the location was given as Antrim House. The property known by this name stood at the junction of north Merrion Square and Lower Mount Street, a vast residence erected for the Earl of Antrim, often considered the most impressive such property in the area after Leinster House: although vacated after just a couple of decades by the Antrims and later turned into an hotel, it survived until 1938 when demolished to make way for an expansion of the National Maternity Hospital. More importantly, the house was only built in 1775, six years after Wellesley’s birth. The confusion arises because the aforementioned earl had previously been responsible for the construction of a previous house not far away on Merrion Street, and this building had been leased by the Earl of Mornington, Arthur Wellesley’s father, in 1765, meaning it might still be thought of in some quarters as Antrim House.





Garret Wellesley – created first Earl of Mornington in 1760 – was born in 1735 in his family seat in County Meath, the now-ruinous Dangan, which has featured here before (see Once One of the Grandest Places in Meath « The Irish Aesthete). From an early age, he demonstrated both interest and aptitude in music, with a particular facility for the violin and for composition: when he was aged 13, his godmother, Mary Delany, wrote that he was ‘a most extraordinary boy. . . [with] more knowledge than I ever met with in one so young.’ Seemingly when he asked composers Francesco Geminiani and Thomas Roseingrave for lessons, they both said he already knew everything they could teach him. So passionate was he about music that on the day of his wedding in February 1759 he also conducted a charity performance of Handel’s oratorio Acis and Galatea for Mercer’s Hospital. After receiving an MA in 1757, along with two other amateur composers, Kane O’Hara and Francis Hutcheson, Wellesley founded an Academy of Music in Dublin. Combining concerts with charitable fundraising, this was the first musical institution in Britain and Ireland to admit women members, its patrons including the Countesses of Tyrone, Charleville and Mornington. Lady Freke, Miss Cavendish and Miss Nichols were listed as harpsichord players, and there were five aristocratic female vocal performers. In 1764 Trinity College Dublin conferred Lord Mornington with a Doctor of Music before being appointed Professor of Music there later that year. He held this post for the next decade and when he resigned, the professorship lapsed and was only revived in the following century. Lord Mornington’s compositions are almost all vocal, including a five-act opera, Caractacus, which was performed at The Theatre Royal, Smock Alley in Dublin in 1764. Seemingly only one completely instrumental work by him survives, a march he wrote for the installation of the Duke of Bedford as Chancellor of Dublin University in 1768. This then was the man who was responsible for Mornington House.




Now part of the Merrion Hotel, Mornington House was not the earl’s first Dublin residence: he had previously occupied a property on Grafton Street. But with the move east following the completion of Leinster House in … he decided to find a new home for himself and his family. Initially, he intended to acquire a plot 100 feet wide on Merrion Square itself, the proposed house being flanked by a carriage arch on either side. However, Lord FitzWilliam, who owned the land here, turned down this scheme, hence Mornington opted to move around the corner and take the lease on Lord Antrim’s recently completed Merrion Street house. As seen today, the building is of five bays and three storeys over basement, faced in brick like its neighbours and with a pedimented stone doorcase flanked by Doric columns; it is thought to have been designed by architect Christopher Myers (he had previously been the architect of Lord Mornington’s Grafton Street house). Again, as is so often the case with Dublin townhouses, the plain exterior conceals a rich interior decorative scheme, although the entrance hall is largely unornamented. On the other hand, two reception rooms to the right of this have elaborate plasterwork ceilings are heavily ornamented with scallop shells, floral festoons and acanthus scrolls, as well as flower baskets and birds. While much in the style of Robert West, Professor Christine Casey attributes all this to the Dublin stuccodore James Byrne, who was similarly responsible around the same period for the decoration of 12 Merrion Square, where his client was William Brownlow, MP for Lurgan, Co. Armagh, who was a friend of Mornington and, like him, a keen amateur musician (he was reputed to have played the harpsichord at the first performance of Handel’s Messiah in Fishamble Street, Dublin in 1742). In May 1766 Brownlow paid a gratuity of £7-13s-6d to Byrne as a ‘present for doing his work well’. Back on Merrion Street, the most interesting space is the stair hall, lit by a large round headed window on the return. In contrast to the somewhat mean joinery of the stairs and dado rail, the plasterwork is most engaging, the wall panels containing garlands and festoons of fruit and flowers, while above them is an exceptionally deep coved cornice with a double row of ovals composed of scrolling acanthus leaves with flowers at their intersections. This was the house in which the future Duke of Wellington spent at least part of his childhood.


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In Three Parts


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




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




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




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


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Having No Equal in the Three Kingdoms


Visiting Kilkenny Castle in 1699, English bookseller John Dunton enthused over the building’s gallery, writing that ‘for length, variety of gilded chairs, and the curious pictures that adorn it, has no equal in the three kingdoms, and perhaps not in Europe; so that this castle may properly be called the Elisium of Ireland.’ Were Dunton somehow to return to Kilkenny today, he would likely find the place unrecognisable, but would still judge the castle gallery as having no equal, certainly not in this country. 





The origins of Kilkenny Castle date back to the late-12th century when a defensive structure was erected on a site high above an important fording point on the river Nore. Likely of wood, it was replaced by a stone building around 1260, a square-shaped castle with a tower at each corner, three of which remain. Passing through various hands, it was seized by the English crown and sold to the Butlers in 1391: hitherto the family’s main base had been at Gowran, some ten miles to the east. Thereafter, Kilkenny became the centre of Butler operations, although the castle went through several periods of neglect. In the second half of the 16th century, for example, Thomas Butler, 10th Earl of Ormond, preferred to concentrate his energies on enhancing another Butler property in Carrick-on-Suir (see All that is Fantastically Eccentric in Architecture « The Irish Aesthete). However, his great-nephew James Butler, first Duke of Ormond and the latter’s wife Elizabeth Preston, lavished attention on Kilkenny Castle, creating the building so admired by Dunton at the end of the 17th century. 




An ardent royalist, James Butler went into exile in France with Charles II. Following the latter’s restoration in 1660, Butler was created Duke of Ormond, recovered his Irish estates and became the country’s Lord Lieutenant. While he and his wife spent much time in Dublin, they also turned their attention to the ancestral castle in Kilkenny where, inspired by what they had seen during their time in mainland Europe, they transformed the building and its grounds in the style of a French château. The garden was laid out in the fashionable Baroque manner, with serried lines of trees, statuary and fountains, and a classical banqueting house. Inside, an inventory made for the couple’s heir, the second duke, reveals that the castle held sets of tapestries, Turkey rugs and looking glasses, Dutch and Indian furniture and a huge collection of more than 500 paintings, the largest in the country with work by Dutch, French, Italian and English artists. Some of these items survive to the present day: six 17th century Dutch tapestries, part of a larger series telling the story of Decius Mus, a Roman Consul, can be seen in one of the rooms, while elsewhere several painted wooden panels carved with ribands and pomegranates are on display. While many visitors to the castle were awed by this display, not everyone felt the same way. In November 1709 Dr Thomas Molyneux arrived in the town and went to look at the building. While acknowledging that it was handsomely situated above the Nore, Molyneux declared that inside ‘there is not one handsome or noble apartment. The Rooms are Darke and the stairs mighty ugly.’ He was also critical of recent alterations to the main structure, thinking the handsome classical entrance from the Parade, along with a new range of buildings all ‘mighty ugly, crooked, and very expensive.’ 





Kilkenny Castle, as seen today, is primarily a 19th century construct. For much of the previous century, it had, once more, been little used and allowed to fall into a poor condition: by 1747, it was described as being like that of ‘a weather-beaten ship in a storm after a long voyage with all her cargo thrown overboard.’ Around 1770, the south wall of the old castle, which had already been badly damaged during the Confederate Wars of the early 1650s, was demolished, thereby breaking the previously enclosed courtyard and opening views to the parkland. Internally, other radical changes took place. The present Picture Gallery, 150 feet long and the finest surviving example of its kind in Ireland, was commissioned in 1826 by James Butler, first Marquess of Ormonde from local architect William Robertson, with further changes made in the 1860s by the firm of Deane and Woodward. Elsewhere, a suite of reception rooms on the first floor continues to reflect their mid-19th century decoration, with walls covered in French silk poplin originally made by Prelle of Lyons, on which are hanging paintings many of which are part of the original Butler family collection. The decoration here is based on photographs showing how the rooms looked in the 1890s. The Butler Marquesses of Ormonde remained in ownership, if not in occupation, of Kilkenny Castle until 1967 when the seventh and last holder of the title sold it for a nominal sum; many of the contents had already been dispersed at auction some 30 years earlier. Today the castle and grounds are owned by the Irish State and managed by the Office of Public Works which has gradually been restoring more of the interior which can be viewed by visitors. 


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Farewell to a Polymath


Last November, the Financial Times published an extensive feature on Alec Cobbe, chronicling some, although by no means all, of his many achievements. Alec, who after a few months ill health died last week, could rightly be described as a polymath, the FT summarising his various skills as an art restorer, historian, author, re-hanger, interior designer and painter who also happened to be a fine pianist. But this is to understate his profusion of talents. To take the last on that list, Alec not only played the piano, he also collected historic keyboard instruments, more than 50 of them which are on display at Hatchlands Park, a National Trust property in Surrey leased by Alec and his wife Isabel since 1984. On display there are two grand pianos which had once belonged to Chopin, as well as Haydn’s grand piano, Liszt’s Italian upright piano, Bizet’s composing table-piano, Mahler’s Viennese piano, Johann Christian Bach’s piano, on which Mozart may also have played, and instruments which formerly belonged to George IV and Marie Antoinette: anyone who visited the recently-ended exhibition devoted to the French queen at London’s Victoria and Albert Museum would have seen her piano there. But as mentioned above, this was just one of Alec’s many skills, of which he had an abundance. He was a highly talented painter (particularly of country house interiors), and separately an illustrator whose work was much in demand for the design of invitations to all sorts of smart events. In addition, he was a restorer who over the course of his life identified more than one lost old master picture, and an interior designer much in demand for his ability to hang picture collections, most recently those at Castle Howard; other houses in which he worked included Harewood, Hatfield, Hillsborough Castle, Knole and Petworth. Extraordinarily well-read and well-informed, he brought a keen and critical eye to every enterprise. But although a well-known and widely admired figure in Britain, Alec’s achievements were perhaps less appreciated in his native Ireland. 





Alec Cobbe was born in Dublin in 1945 and spent much of his childhood at Newbridge, the house some short distance north of the city where his widowed mother lived with her bachelor brother-in-law. Newbridge had been commissioned by the family’s forebear, Charles Cobbe, Archbishop of Dublin, in the late 1740s and designed by James Gibbs, seemingly the architect’s only work in Ireland (for more on Newbridge, see The Glory of the House « The Irish Aesthete). Without question, Alec’s eye received its earliest training at Newbridge, a house to which he remained thereafter devoted despite being based on the other side of the Irish Sea for the greater part of his professional life. After school, initially he studied medicine at Oxford (and won a prize for anatomical drawing) but then moved into the field of art restoration, training at the Tate Gallery before he established a conservation studio at Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, and then worked at the Hamilton Kerr Institute in Cambridge. Eventually he opened his own studio in 1981. As he explained in the FT article, the move into interior decoration and specifically picture hanging was a natural evolution: having taken care of a painting’s restoration, he would often see it hung unsympathetically. As he explained, ‘I’d think, “Why the hell did I spend all that time on the picture for it to be killed by the hanging of the thing”?’ Alec was always a man of strong opinions and with few qualms about expressing them. When the members of the public visit Newbridge today, they are seeing a house that represents his vision of its history and evolution. Yet this almost didn’t happen. When Alec’s uncle Thomas died in 1985, the house and estate were acquired by the local authority and it looked as though the family’s link with the property would be irreparably broken. Instead, just as the building’s contents were about to be removed, an agreement was made whereby they would remain on the premises and, in return, the Cobbes would be able to live in Newbridge from time to time. Although such arrangements are common in England, this is highly unusual in Ireland but proved to be an enormous blessing not least because Alec, passionate about the place, did much to improve it by driving various restoration projects and adding to the existing furnishings and works of art. He also loved to entertain in the house, and those of us fortunate to have been invited will have fond memories of convivial meals, either eaten in the main dining room or upstairs in the family flat, followed by a sound night’s sleep in one of the guest bedrooms. 





The pictures shown here reflect two rooms in Newbridge that particularly engaged Alec’s attention. The first is a cabinet of curiosities. Incorporating items collected by Archbishop Cobbe, this was essentially the creation of his son Thomas and daughter-in-law Lady Betty Cobbe who lived there from the time of their marriage in 1755 to their respective deaths in the early 19th century. Originally referred to as ‘ye Ark’, the cabinet takes up an entire room in the house, its walls lined with hand-painted sheets depicting oriental scenes and held in place by faux bamboo découpage trellising. A suite of specially made cases and display cabinets were filled with a typically diverse range of items, shells, exotica, curios, much of it from other countries. In 1758, for example, the Cobbes bought some coral, as well as a nest of vipers and a ‘Solar Microscope.’  Eventually, the collection came to include a stuffed crocodile, an ostrich egg mounted in a bog oak stand, a set of ivory chess pieces from China and a depiction of the coronation of George III (1761) carved in bone and placed inside a glass bottle. Over time, the room in Newbridge began to suffer neglect: even by 1858 it was being described as ‘the poor old museum.’ In the 1960s the paper on the walls was taken down and sold, the cases and cabinets moved first to the basement and then an attic lumber room, and the space converted into a sitting room. While many of the surviving contents are now in Hatchlands Park, the Newbridge cabinet of curiosities was recreated, a replica of the wallpaper produced from memory by Alec, the cases brought down from the attic, and a replica sample of the collection once more on display. Meanwhile, at the far end of the house stands the red drawing room, another addition made by Thomas and Lady Betty Cobbe, working with local architect George Semple. Some 45 feet long, the room has a ceiling featuring ‘a sea of scrolling leaves and floral garlands encircled by dragons and birds fighting over baskets of fruit,’ believed to have been undertaken by stuccodore Richard Williams, a pupil of Robert West. Two hundred years ago, payments for furniture were made to Woods & Son, and to Mack, Williams & Gibton of Dublin, who were also paid for curtains in 1828. The carpet, by Beck & Co. of Bath was supplied in March 1823 for £64 and 18 shillings, while the crimson flock wallpaper and matching border came from the Dublin firm of Patrick Boylan. The present arrangement of paintings, the greater part of them collected during the previous century by Archbishop Cobbe and his son and daughter-in-law, dates from the same period. Some of the collection had been sold in Dublin in 1812, and in 1839 two key paintings – by Hobbema and Dughet – were sold to pay to fund the construction of some 80 estate workers’ cottages. In November of that year, then owner Charles Cobbe wrote in his diary, ‘I have filled up the vacancies on my walls occasioned by the loss of the two pictures which have been sold, and I felt some satisfaction in thinking that my room (by the new arrangement) looks even more furnished than before.’ Such is still the case today, thanks to Alec. Over many years, he undertook successive projects to preserve and conserve the drawing room, so that today it is a rare example of late Irish Georgian taste. There were several other projects in this country with which Alec was closely associated, not least the redecoration of the drawing room at Russborough, County Wicklow (see A Room Reborn « The Irish Aesthete). Having served alongside him as trustee of a charitable foundation, the Irish Aesthete can testify to his indefatigable enthusiasm and diverse range of interests. Sadly, he has not lived to see the publication of his latest book, Inside the Country Houses of Britain & Ireland, due to be published by Rizzoli in September. Let it serve as a lasting memorial to the polymath that was Alec Cobbe. 


Richard Alexander Charles Cobbe, January 9th 1945 – March 31st 2026

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A Noble and Dignified Building


Going back several hundred years, a particular feature of Cork city life has been a series of families known as its ‘merchant princes.’ Think of these as being the equivalent of those wealthy families who dominated life in Italian city-states of the early Renaissance or, for a more local example, the 14 Tribes who ran Galway city in the Middle Ages. In Cork, many of their names still resonate, the likes of Beamish, Crawford, Murphy, Roche, Barry and Coveney. In each instance, their wealth came through trade, the management of successful businesses which, in turn, allowed members of these families to play a dominant role in civic life, often holding seats on local councils, influencing policy and directing the course of urban life in the area. In the 18th century, most of them were members of the Established Church but even before the final lifting of penal legislation in 1829, Roman Catholic families had begun to make their mark in Cork, not just in trade but in the city’s physical appearance through acts of philanthropy, such as underwriting the construction of new places of worship. One such family were the Honans. 





The Honan family originated in Limerick, but it appears that in the early 1800s one of them settled in Cork city where they became successful butter merchants, with premises running from 19/20 St Patrick’s Quay up to 10/11 King Street (now McCurtain Street), a site now occupied by the Metropole Hotel.  Their home was on higher ground above the business at 26 Sidney Place on Wellington Road. The last generation numbered three children, Matthew, Robert and Isabella. Not far from their former residence is St Patrick’s church on the Lower Glanmire Road. Originally designed by architect George Pain in the mid-1830s, this was extended and largely rebuilt half a century later, with the costs being underwritten by the Honan siblings. However, today their most important legacy is considered to be a small chapel located on the periphery of the University College Cork campus. Isabella Honan, the last member of the family to die in 1913, had already established a link with the institution three years earlier thanks to a number of scholarships based on an endowment fund of £10,000. But the greater part of the family fortune was left to disburse for charitable purposes in Cork, as deemed appropriate by the family solicitor and executor of her will, Sir John Robert O’Connell. Like the deceased, O’Connell was an ardent Catholic (following his wife’s death, he would be ordained a priest) and in accordance with Isabella Honan’s wishes, used much of the money to benefit that church, although sums were provided to complete the university’s Biological Laboratory (accordingly named the Honan Biological Institute) and the Hydraulic Laboratory. In 1914 O’Connell negotiated the purchase of St Anthony’s Hostel. Previously called Berkeley Hall, this had opened 30 years earlier as a residence for Church of Ireland students in 1884. Now it became the Honan Hostel, a place of residence for male Catholic students attending the university, although it was governed by a separate legal trust. It continued until 1991 when closed down and, after being purchased by the university, the hostel and adjacent warden’s house were demolished. However, the chapel built thanks to Isabella Honan’s will still survives. 





Supported by the university’s then-president, Sir Bertram Windle, and on a site beside the now-lost hostel, O’Connell opted to use much of the Honan Bequest to construct a ‘noble and dignified’ building that would serve as a chapel for use by the students. His intention was that this structure would ‘call into life again the spirit and the work of an age when Irishmen built churches and nobly adorned them under an impulse of native genius’ and for this reason, its design would be in the Hiberno-Romanesque style. O’Connell was also very keen that Irish craftsmen and Irish materials would be used in the construction and for the greater part this was the case. A local architectural firm, McMullen & Associates, designed the chapel which was built by John Sisk & Son of Cork. The foundation stone was laid in May 1915 and the building was consecrated in November 1916, an astonishingly short period of time, especially since the work took place in the middle of the First World War. The chapel’s exterior, faced in locally-quarried limestone ashlar, is largely devoid of ornament other than the western entrance facade, featuring a blind arcade and gabled portal inspired by that of St Cronan’s Church in Roscrea, County Tipperary (see Still Standing « The Irish Aesthete).  Henry Emery of Dublin, assisted by apprentices from Cork Technical School carved the stone capitals of Munster saints on either side of the door, while the statue of St Finbarr above is the work of Oliver Sheppard. Drawing inspiration from familiar Celtic designs, the wrought-iron gates were by William A. Scott, professor of architecture in University College, Dublin (he was also responsible for the silver sanctuary lamp). Inside the barrel-vaulted building, 11 of the 19 stained glass windows were designed by the young Harry Clarke – this was his first significant commission after leaving the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art – while others were produced by Alfred Child, Ethel Rhind and Catherine O’Brien. Inside the chancel, the arcading was inspired by Cormac’s Chapel on the Rock of Cashel, County Tipperary, while the gabled tabernacle was designed by enamellist Oswald Reeves and other items like altar hanging, liturgical banners and cushions came from the Dun Emer Guild. In fact, O’Connell’s ambition to have the entire building reflect the very best of contemporary Irish design and manufacture was let down in only two places: the Stations of the Cross and the mosaic floor illustrating the River of Life: both of these came from the Manchester firm of Ludwig Oppenheimer Ltd. In the early 1980s, like so many other Catholic churches in this country, the interior of the Honan Chapel was reordered to reflect changes introduced following the Second Vatican Council. However, more recently a thorough restoration of the building was undertaken and so today it looks much as originally intended, aside from the introduction of some rather strange mauve lighting around the windows which has the effect of making it hard to see the stained glass clearly. An unfortunate and unnecessary intervention on the site.


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In No Way Averse to the Magnificence of Life 


Born in 1695, Robert Clayton followed the example of his father and became a Church of Ireland clergyman, rising to become Bishop first of Killala and Achonry, then Cork and Ross and finally of Clogher. His personal wealth allowed him to undertake a Grand Tour, which left a lasting impression not just on Clayton but also on his contemporaries. Following his appointment to Cork in 1735, the Earl of Orrery wrote, ‘We have a Bishop, who, as He has travel’d beyond the Alps, has brought home with him, to the amazement of our merchantile Fraternity, the Arts and Sciences that are the Ornament of Italy and the Admiration of the European World. He eats, drinks and sleeps in Taste. He has Pictures by Carlo, Morat, Music by Corelli, Castles in the Air by Vitruvius ; and on High-Days and Holidays We have the Honour of catching Cold at a Venetian door.’ Lord Orrery’s colourful account of the impression made by Clayton proposes a striking contrast with the episcopacy of his predecessor, Peter Browne, during which ‘We were as silent and melancholy as Captives, and We were Strangers to Mirth even by Analogy.’ Clayton seems to have appreciated not just Corelli but also Handel, since he facilitated the first performance of ‘The Messiah’ in St Fin Barre’s Cathedral in December 1744. He was a Fellow of both the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries of London, as well as supporting various cultural organisations in Ireland.




Robert Clayton’s wealth meant that when in 1728 he married Katherine Donnellan, a daughter of Lord Chief Baron Nehemiah Donnellan, he could afford to give his wife’s fortune to her sister Anne. The latter was a close friend of Mary Delany, which is one reason why we know so much about the Claytons and their social life. In June 1732, while still the widowed Mrs Pendarves, she spent some time in Killala, staying with the couple in the episcopal palace, known as the Castle, which she described as ‘old and indifferent enough.’ However, ‘the garden, which is laid out entirely for use, is pretty – a great many shady walks and full-grown forest trees.’ Furthermore, Bishop Clayton had added another field to the property, ‘and planted it in very good taste.’ While in Killala, Mrs Pendarves and Anne Donnellan created what may have been the first shell house in Ireland. This was installed inside a natural grotto at the top of a hill close to Killala, the shells coming from a large collection assembled by the bishop as well as those collected on the shores of County Mayo. In mid-August, there was a local fair, with races on the strand and then, to mark Mrs Clayton’s birthday, she and her guests ‘all attired in our best apparel,’ sat in front of the house to watch ‘dancing, singing, grinning, accompanied with an excellent bagpipe, the whole concluded with a ball, bonfire and illuminations.’ ‘Pray,’ she asked her sister, ‘does your Bishop promote such entertainments at Gloster as ours does at Killala?’ Fifteen years later and by now married to Dr Patrick Delany, she described another such birthday party, this time in Clogher, where musicians played for eight pairs of dances, a ‘sumptuous cold collation’ was served at 11pm, after which the fiddlers struck up again and the dancing continued until after two o’clock (the Delanys sensibly crept away to their own sleeping quarters after supper). Writing to her family in England in February 1746, Mrs Delany noted ‘On Monday we dine at the Bishop of Clogher’s. Mrs Clayton is to have a drum in the evening and we are invited to it. Their house is very proper for such an entertainment, and Mrs Clayton very fit for the undertaking. She loves the show and homage of a rout, has a very good address and is still as well inclined to all the gaieties of life as she was at five-and-twenty; the Bishop loves to please and indulge her, and is himself no way averse to the magnificence of life.’ 




The Claytons undoubtedly liked to live well and could afford to do so. On one of her early visits to Dublin, in September 1731 Mrs Pendarves stayed with the couple in their townhouse on St Stephen’s Green. Writing to her sister in England, the Claytons’ guest declared the building to be ‘magnifique’, the chief front of it looking like Devonshire House in London and the rooms filled with objects, busts and pictures which the bishop had brought back from a tour he had made of France and Italy after graduating from Trinity College Dublin. In a second letter, Mrs Pendarves provided her sibling with a meticulous description of the main reception rooms: ‘First there is a very good hall well filled with servants, then a room of eighteen foot square, wainscoated with oak, the panels all carved, and the doors and chimney finished with very fine high carving, the ceiling stucco, the window-curtains and chairs yellow Genoa damask, portraits and landscapes, very well done, round the room, marble tables between the windows, and looking glasses with gilt frames.’ Mrs Pendarves continues her account with information on the next room, which measured 28 by 22 feet, ‘and is as finely adorned as damask, pictures and busts can make it, besides the floor being entirely covered with the finest Persian carpet that ever was seen. The bedchamber is large and handsome, all furnished with the same damask.’ Despite its evident splendour, this was not the house, 80 St Stephen’s Green designed for Clayton by architect Richard Castle (and seen in these pictures), since work on that property only began five years later in 1736.  




The Claytons’ new Dublin townhouse was still a work in progress when visited in December 1736 by the aforementioned Earl of Orrery, who shortly afterwards wrote to Clayton. Lord Orrery was much impressed by what he had seen, even though, ‘as your Lordps Commands did not extend so far as to order me to break my Neck or my Limbs, I ventur’d no further than the Hall Door, from whence my Prospect was much confin’d, except when I look’d upwards to the Sky.’ Calling the house a palace, Orrery went on to say that its first floor Great Room would probably bring his cousin, the architect Earl of Burlington, over to Ireland from London. However, while he was confident that the bishop’s hearing and sight should be satisfied with the finished building, the same might not be the case for his sense of smell, owing to the proximity of the stables. Orrery therefore suggested these could be located further behind the house if a little more land were purchased, although he observed that as long as the stables had a beautiful cornice, ‘Signor Cassels [Castle] does not seem to care where it stands.’ From the exterior, it’s difficult to gain a sense of what the building looked like because, after being bought in 1858 by Benjamin Lee Guinness, it was joined to its immediate neighbour to the right and the two properties given a unified  seven-bay façade in Portland stone. However, inside the house, some of the original interiors survive on both the ground and first floors, not least the Saloon or ‘Great Room’ which spans the full three-bay width of the Clayton building and is notable for its coved and coffered ceiling, based on a Serlio plate of the Temple of Bacchus in Rome) which rises up to the attic. Behind this lies the Music Room, the ceiling of which conveniently indicates its function. Alas, the Claytons’ happy, sociable existence ended in tears, due to the prelate’s insistence on putting into print his somewhat unorthodox views on Christianity in a work called A Vindication of the Histories of the Old and New Testament. Espousing Arianism, he subsequently proposed in the Irish House of Lords that the Nicene and Athanasian creeds be removed from the prayer book. As a result, he was summoned for trial on a charge of heresy before an ecclesiastical commission. However, before the trial began, in February 1758 the bishop died of a fever in his Dublin residence. Horace Walpole, with his customary sharpness of tongue, claimed Clayton’s death was due to panic at the thought of having to defend his idiosyncratic religious beliefs. Presented by the second Earl of Iveagh to the Irish State, the building has since served as the headquarters of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Below, a portrait of Robert and Katherine Clayton painted in happier times (c.1740) by James Latham, now in the National Gallery of Ireland. 


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