Tag Archives: Historic Interiors

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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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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