Domat Omnia Virtus*

Jan27

It seems only fitting that Lough Cutra, County Galway should be battlemented and turreted, and have the, admittedly deceptive, appearance of impregnability since for a long time it was associated with military families. But the spot on which it stands is deeply romantic: the castle is reached at the end of an exceptionally long drive through open parkland and eventually one arrives at a spot which, as the Knight of Glin and Edward Malins wrote in their 1976 book on Irish demesnes, is ‘picturesquely situated high above the banks of the lough, whose waters lash the terrace walls.’ Glin and Malins likewise admired the ‘extensive and deep planting of woods and plantations, and wooded islands with ruins of churches and mountains in the background.’
Based around the 1,000 acre lake several square miles in extent and from which the estate takes its name, Lough Cutra’s ruins indicate how long there has been human settlement here. The present owners explain succinctly the history of the estate, noting that ‘the local area is rich in remnants of churches, cells and monasteries due to the introduction of Christianity. A number of the islands on the lake contain the remnants of stone altars. It is quite likely that St. Patrick passed Lough Cutra on his travels and St. Colman MacDuagh was a relative of Gort’s King Guaire. A holy well with a cross with the date 1745 lies on the Eastern shore of Lough Cutra. The ruined church of Beagh on the North West shore was sacked by the Danes in 866 A.D. and war raged through the district for nearly 1000 years.’
From the 12th century onwards, this territory was controlled by the Ó Seachnasaigh (anglicised as O’Shaughnessy) family. The last to hold the land, Sir Roger O’Shaughnessy, supported James II at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690 and died seven days later in his castle at Gort. His son and heir William went into exile and eventually became a general in the French army. In 1697 the O’Shaughnessy lands were seized and presented to Sir Thomas Prendergast who likewise became a general. The two men, O’Shaughnessy and Prendergast, would fight on opposing sides at the Battle of Malplaquet in September 1709 during which the latter was killed (O’Shaughnessy lived another thirty-five years in exile).

Despite the best efforts of successive O’Shaughnessys they never regained their former estates which remained in the possession of the Prendergasts, a branch of a family which had likewise been in Ireland for many centuries, descendants of from Maurice de Prendergast, a Norman knight who came to the country in 1169. Following the death of Sir Thomas Prendergast at Malplaquet, the newly-acquired estates in County Galway passed to his seven-year old son, also called Thomas, who in adulthood managed to sit in both the Irish and British Houses of Commons. Since he had no children, on his death in 1760 the property passed to a nephew John Prendergast Smyth, youngest son of Sir Thomas’ sister Elizabeth. Having begun life in the army, he subsequently became a parliamentarian (although in 1793 he was appointed Colonel of the Limerick Volunteers) and joined the peerage first as Baron Kiltartan in 1810 and then six years later as Viscount Gort. He died in 1817, again without children and so once more the estate passed to a nephew, his sister’s son Colonel Charles Vereker. Of Dutch origin, the Verekers had come to Ireland in the middle of the 17th century and prospered despite supporting the two unfortunate Stuarts, Charles I and James II.
Like so many of those who owned Lough Cutra before and after, Charles Vereker was an army man: leading the Limerick Militia established by his uncle, in September 1798 he checked the advance of the French force led by General Humbert at Collooney, County Sligo and later took part in the Battle of Ballinamuck where he was wounded. For all that, again like his uncle he was vehemently opposed to the 1800 Act of Union, declaring ‘I have defended my country with my blood, and there is nothing in the gift of the Crown that would tempt me to betray her by my vote.’ After the Union he represented Limerick in the British House of Commons until becoming second Viscount Gort. Incidentally, he was also last to hold the ancient feudal post of Governor and Constable of the Castle of Limerick.

The second Lord Gort inherited some 12,000 acres from his uncle, and even before then he had received that part of the estate which included Lough Cutra (then often called Lough Cooter). Here he decided to build a new residence, his initial intention being to commission an Italianate villa at a spot called Situation Hill on the opposite side of the lake from where the house actually stands. However at some date he saw architect John Nash’s own property, East Cowes Castle on the Isle of Wight. Supposedly accompanying the Prince Regent on a visit to East Cowes, he exclaimed ‘How I wish I could transport this Castle to the banks of Lough Cooter’ to which Nash replied, ‘Give me fifty thousand pounds and I will do it for you.’
In fact the eventual cost was closer to £80,000, probably because extensive work had to be carried out on creating the demesne envisaged by landscape designer John Sutherland: in 1855 J.B. Burke’s Visitation of Seats and Arms reported that the greater part of the area around the house and outbuildings ‘was blasted to a considerable depth out of the solid rock, and the gardens then filled with rich soil carried from distant spots, their walls being formed of limestone laboriously cut to the size of bricks…the undulating sward, which extends from the castle towards the lake is also to a great extent artificial.’ In addition, because of the site’s slope a terrace had to be built up in front of the lake before work on the house could begin.
Although Nash designed Lough Cutra, it is unclear what part, if any, he played in its actual construction. He does appear to have visited Ireland at least once: in 1821 he told the landscape artist and diarist Joseph Farington that he ‘had travelled in the three Kingdoms 11,000 miles in the year and in that time had expended £1,500 in chaise hire.’ The work at Lough Cutra was supervised by James Pain who had been apprenticed to Nash and was highly regarded by the latter. Pain came to Ireland in 1811, and remained here the rest of his life, being joined by his younger brother George Richard in 1815 after which the siblings ran a very successful practice for several decades.

Since James Pain arrived here in 1811 it is assumed that work started on Lough Cutra around that time. It was still going on in October 1817 since in that month the Limerick Gazette reported ‘with deepest regret’ that earlier in the month when Pain ‘was surveying some part of the beautiful building now going forward at Loughcooter Castle, County Galway, the intended mansion of Lord Viscount Gort, the scaffolding on which he stood gave way, and he was precipitated from an eminence of four stories high – his side first reached the ground, with the head inclining downwards – the collar bone has been broken, the brain has received a severe concussion, and several bruises on different parts of the body. – A report was current in the town on Sunday that he was dead, but we are happy to say, the arrival of Surgeon Franklin who (together with Surgeon Gibson of the City Regt. pofessionally [sic] attended) has not only contradicted that rumour, but has been given sanguine hopes of a speedy recovery.’ Indeed he did make a full recovery, living until 1877.
As originally built, Lough Cutra was more compact than later became the case, with sufficient variation in the disposition of towers and windows to give interest to the exterior. Inside, the main block of two storeys over sunken basement has a vaulted entrance hall behind which runs three reception rooms overlooking the lake. A round tower to one side contains the staircase leading to the first floor bedrooms opening off a top-lit central corridor.
It would appear that not only did Lord Gort spend much more on the property than had been intended but when he inherited his uncle’s estate it was discovered to carry debts of some £60,000. As a result he was rather impoverished and following his death in 1842 so too was his heir. The third Viscount did his best to provide assistance to his tenants during the years of the Great Famine by not collecting rents and providing work on the estate. The consequence was that he bankrupted himself and in 1851 Lough Cutra was offered for sale by order of the Encumbered Estates Court. Some sections of the estate were parcelled off and in 1852 the castle and immediate land was purchased by James Caulfield, in trust for a Mrs Ball, Superior of the Loreto Convent, Rathfarnham, County Dublin for £17,000. Lord Gort moved to England and ironically a few years later as a result of his second marriage came to own East Cowes Castle, the inspiration for his own former property. It was occupied by the family until requisitioned by the army during the Second World War during which the building suffered severe damage. East Cowes Castle was eventually demolished in 1960.

For a short period of time Lough Cutra Castle became a convent school. However in 1854 it reverted to private ownership after being bought by Field Marshall Hugh Gough, first Viscount Gough. Like the Verekers, the Goughs were another family long settled in this part of Ireland, being descended from three brothers, all Anglican clergymen, who had come here in the early 17th century. Likewise they subsequently became stalwarts of the British army, Hugh Gough’s father serving with Charles Vereker in the Limerick Militia during the 1798 Rebellion. Hugh Gough entered the forces when still in his teens (he was already promoted to the rank of Lieutenant a month before his fifteenth birthday) and fought with the future Duke of Wellington during the Peninsula War. After being responsible for the British forces in China during the First Opium War, he became Commander in Chief of the army in India and was responsible for the defeat of the Sikhs in two wars. It was following his retirement and advancement to the peerage that he decided to buy Lough Cutra, also purchasing back much of the original estate.
Following his acquisition, the castle was considerably extended to the designs of an unknown architect. In April 1855 the Civil Engineer and Architect’s Journal advised readers, ‘Loughcooter Castle…the property of General Lord Viscount Gough, is now undergoing vast alterations and improvements There is a new tower at present in a state of progression; there have been large numbers of artizans and labourers employed during the last four months, and from the extensive works about to be executed are likely to be constantly employed for the next two years.’ In the late 1890s the third Viscount Gort commissioned a further extension, known as the Library Wing, from architect George Ashlin to house his grandfather’s war spoils: this was demolished in the 1950s and the cut stone used in the restoration of Bunratty Castle, County Clare. Changes were made to the interior also, some of which have survived. In the drawing room, for example, the walls are papered with the Gough coat of arms created by Coles, and the elaborately painted ceiling is believed to be by John Gregory Crace.
Commentators have often been rather sniffy about the Goughs’ interventions at Lough Cutra, one author opining ‘The additions were heavy and ill-proportioned and turned a neat and successful composition into an unwieldy and rambling one.’ But photographs of the building from the late 19th/early 20th centuries show that some of the changes were not unattractive. Full-length projecting window bays on either side of the main entrance, for example, probably increased the amount of light in the hall immediately behind, while the drawing room certainly benefitted from a similar window overlooking the lake: all of these have long since gone.

In the 20th century the Gough family, no longer as affluent as had been the case and with the greater part of their estate taken by the Land Commission, could no longer afford to maintain the castle and in the 1928 the family converted part of the stable yard into a residence. Thereafter Lough Cutra stood empty except during the years of the Emergency (1939-45) when it was occupied by members of the Irish army; as with East Cowes Castle at the same time, the outcome was not beneficial for the house. In 1952 the estate was placed on the market and eventually bought by the seventh Viscount Gort, great-grandson of the man who had sold it a century earlier. Lord Gort is today remembered for having bought and restored Bunratty Castle in the 1950s (when stone from parts of the Gough extensions to Lough Cutra were used to make repairs). He gave Lough Cutra to his great-niece the Hon Elizabeth Sidney who in 1966 married Sir Humphrey Wakefield. Together the Wakefields embarked on a restoration of Lough Cutra which by this date was in a near-derelict condition, with much of the interior decoration including the staircase pulled out. Had they not done this work, almost certainly the castle would no longer stand.
However in 1971 the Wakefields divorced and once more the estate was put onto the market. As is well-known Sir Humphrey, who worked in the furniture department of Christie’s before becoming a director of Mallet, went on to buy and restore Chillingham Castle in Northumberland. Here he has one significant souvenir of Lough Cutra: an equestrian statue of the first Viscount Gough. The work has had a troubled history: it was designed by John Henry Foley who died before its completion and there was then difficulty finding a site. Eventually the statue was placed in Dublin’s Phoenix Park where on Christmas Eve 1944 the figure of Lord Gough was beheaded and his sword removed. In November 1956 the right hind leg of his horse was blown off and the following July the entire statue was hurled from its base by a huge explosion. It then languished for almost thirty years in storage before being bought by Robert Guinness, a friend of Wakefield, who afterwards brought the statue to Chillingham where it can now be seen.
As for Lough Cutra, in the aftermath of the Wakefields’ departure the estate was bought by the present owner’s family. Since then the programme of refurbishment has been ongoing, with a new roof on the main body of the castle completed in 2003 and other remedial work done on the tower roofs, plus attention given to buildings such as lodges and yards, as well as the woods and what survives of the once-extensive gardens. As is so often the case, this is a project without visible end but thanks to the commitment and enthusiasm of the owner it is also an enterprise that exudes success. Nash’s East Cowes Castle today can be recalled only through old photographs but what might be described as its progeny Lough Cutra Castle looks set to enjoy a long and happy life yet.

The Lough Cutra estate hosts a wide variety of events. For more information, see: http://www.loughcutra.com/

*Virtue Overcomes All Things: the motto of the Gough family.

Flying High

Jan22

A crowning with laurel occurs in the central section of a painted ceiling in one of the first-floor rooms at Rathfarnham Castle, County Dublin. Measuring just eighteen by sixteen feet and formerly known as the breakfast or small dining room, this space has on stylistic grounds been attributed to James ‘Athenian’ Stuart; the proposal is supported by a comment made by Lady Shelburne in 1769 that some of the castle’s interiors were then being decorated ‘after Designs of Mr Stuart’s.’ For a long time it was also believed that the ceiling itself had been painted by Angelica Kauffmann who certainly came to Rathfarnham during her visit to Ireland during the winter of 1771-72, and while in the country painted a portrait of the building’s then-residents, the Earl and Countess of Ely, together with the latter’s two nieces (now in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland). However, as Grainne Madden has observed, while quite delightful, the quality of workmanship here ‘is not as highly finished as one would expect from comparisons with authenticated works’ by Kauffman.

Sturdy as an Oak

Jan6

In recent months this site has featured more than a few derelict historic properties, and is likely to do so again in the months ahead. Today however the focus is on a house which might easily have been lost altogether but instead has been admirably and impeccably restored. Ballinderry Park, County Galway was built during the first half of the 18th century, perhaps some date in the 1740s. For much of the Middle Ages the lands on which it stood belonged to the Franciscan friars of nearby Kilconnell (see Where There is Darkness, Light, November 18th 2013) but in the late 16th/early 17th century they passed into the hands of English-born judge Sir Charles Calthorpe who in 1584 was made Attorney-General for Ireland. Sometime after his death in 1616, they came into the possession of the Church of Ireland Diocese of Clonfert which thereafter remained the landlord until the third quarter of the 19th century.

Ballinderry was leased by the Church of Ireland to the Stanford family, one of whom was a revenue collector in the area in the 1680s. The Stanfords, who are recorded as living not far away in Aughrim Castle in 1837, in turn sub-let the Ballinderry estate to the Wards of Ballymacward. The latter were long-settled in the area, having served as hereditary poets to the O Kellys, Lords of Uí Maine, since ancient times the dominant family in this part of the country. In 1786 the tenant was Lewis Ward whose sister Sabina that year married Andrew Comyn, tenant of a small property at Ryefield, County Roscommon. Ultimately their son Nicholas inherited the tenancy and after the Church of Ireland was disestablished in 1871 he purchased the freehold of Ballinderry on 547 acres. His son, another Andrew Comyn, married Mary O’Connell, grand-daughter of Daniel O’Connell. In the 1911 Census he is listed as aged 79 and living in the house with his three sons along with two male and three female servants. The Comyns remained at Ballinderry until 1947. Following the family’s departure the Irish Land Commission subdivided the land with the house, yards and a few immediate acres being bought by Mr. Callanan, a local man.

Ballinderry Park’s current owners George and Susie Gossip write so eloquently that it is best to rely on their own description of the building: ‘The house dates from the first half of the eighteenth century and is largely unaltered, with the exception of a two-storied return at the rear. Two stone-built stable ranges, one mid 19th century and the other considerably earlier, form an enclosed courtyard behind the house, with a pair of tall gates at either end.
Ballinderry is a comparatively small building; seven bays wide and of two stories over a basement. The steeply pitched roof has end gables and hides a third storey, lit by small windows high in the gables. Unusually, the roof over the full-height central bow is taken right up to the level of the main ridge, rather than being returned at a lower level. This gives the house the appearance of having a central tower, rather like a small French château. Apart from the heavy cornice at the eaves and the fine pedimented door case, the façade is free from decoration.
The blank monotony of the end elevations is relieved by the massive stacks, while the rear has been considerably altered, probably on several occasions. In front, the basement is below ground, with its windows opening onto a sunken area like a Dublin town house, but it is several feet above the level of the yard at the rear.
As befits a house of this size the interior is plain, with good shouldered architraves, panelled doors and shutters of heavy 1750s joinery. The staircase, while slightly lighter in style, is the finest internal feature and appears to be original. Were it not for this one would be tempted to suggest that the house could even be earlier, perhaps dating from the 1730s, and this may even be the case. Ballinderry’s chief interest lies in the main façade and in the arrangement and details of the staircase and principal rooms – solid rural grandeur in a miniature scale.’

When the Gossips bought Ballinderry in 2001, ‘it was in a sorry state, used as a store for country furniture, old farm carts, and an amazing variety of agricultural implements and artifacts. While the roof looked intact from the front, the three large Victorian dormer windows at the rear had collapsed, causing considerable damage, both to roof and to the internal fabric. In addition, vandals had smashed the windows and looted the chimneypieces (which in any case were Victorian replacements).’
The first task was to strip the roof so that its main timbers could be repaired and made good while surviving slates were either saved or replaced. The house is constructed of fieldstone covered in lime render which had become defective and had to be removed. This revealed stone lintels, which showed the original positions of the drawing room and dining room windows since reinstated by local masons. As for the windows these were restored to what the Gossips believed to be their original appearance with unequal sashes on the ground floor using heavy early-Georgian glazing bars in the main house and thin Regency glazing bars in the wing, all specially made for the house.
Internally, although the floors were extremely decayed it was possible to save most of the joists; the boards have now been replaced with wide pine boards sawn from old reclaimed beams. The decorative woodwork had been badly attacked by woodworm but all principal doors and most of the shutters were salvaged, together with enough architrave for it to be copied. The skirting had deteriorated beyond repair and the chair-rail had been removed many years ago, so these also had to be replaced.
Apart from shutters and doors, nothing remained of the original decoration in either the drawing or dining rooms. Both were given new ceilings and the walls paneled in the early 18th century style. The drawing room now contains an early Kilkenny marble chimneypiece from a house in County Waterford, the dining room has an early 18th century slate chimneypiece. Similar extensive work took place in the staircase hall and the first floor bedrooms.

Thanks to the ministrations of the Gossips, one suspects that Ballinderry today looks better than at any time in its history. The house has a particularly evocative atmosphere, extremely comfortable and aesthetically satisfying. None of the rooms is especially large but there is everywhere a sense of generous space. In part this is due to the ample staircase, its treads wide and deep, and leading to a first floor landing lit from front and rear and of such generous dimensions that it might serve as another sitting room.
Just as importantly, Ballinderry serves as an example of what can be done to save a house that looks on the verge of being lost forever. Of course it takes imagination and patience to bring back a building like this from the brink of ruination but as the accompanying photographs indicate the result more than justifies the effort. Many abandoned houses in Ireland could still be restored provided prospective owners approach the task with the same determination and flair as did the Gossips. The name Ballinderry derives from the Irish Baile an Daoire meaning town, or town-land, of the oak trees. Today the house is once more as sturdy as an oak and ought to survive for as long.

Ballinderry Park welcomes guests. For more information about the house, including further details of its restoration, see: http://ballinderrypark.com

Wyatt Thing

Jan4

A detail of the plaster frieze running around the walls of the staircase hall at Ardbraccan, County Meath. We know that in 1773 James Wyatt produced drawings for the centre block of the house. These were commissioned by Henry Maxwell, Bishop of Meath whose brother Barry Maxwell, Earl of Farnham would likewise employ Wyatt to design a new house for him in County Cavan a few years later. In the event, the architect’s plans for Ardbraccan were modified to incorporate elements from schemes by both Thomas Cooley and Daniel Beaufort, the latter a gifted amateur who was also Rector of nearby Navan. However, the staircase hall’s plasterwork is distinctly Wyatt’esque and so it is surely not too fanciful to imagine that at least this part of his proposal was executed without intervention from other hands.

Great Gas

Dec28

The ceiling of the library at Killyleagh Castle, County Down. Although the building dates back to the 12th century when constructed by the Norman knight John de Courcy, its present appearance is the result of a complete renovation undertaken 1849-51 to the designs of Charles Lanyon. Exterior and interior alike display terrific exuberance, as well as a wide variety of sources of inspiration, as this ceiling demonstrates. Originally a gasolier would have hung from the centre of the plasterwork.

Unfurling the Foliage

Dec21

A section of the stair hall ceiling at Powerscourt House, Dublin. Designed in the early 1770s by Robert Mack, this served as the town residence for the Viscounts Powerscourt until sold to the government in 1807 for £500 less than it had cost to build. The house is rightly famous for its ebullient decoration, not least this ceiling by stuccodore James McCullagh which, along with the surrounding walls, features a riot of compartmentalised acanthus scrolls. The plasterwork in Powerscourt House is of superior quality but difficult to appreciate since the building, which has served as a shopping centre for the past three decades, is excessively cluttered with confusing signage.

A Place of Magic

Dec16

The earliest recorded mention of the County Clare village Sixmilebridge is in the 1681 journal of the English antiquary Thomas Dinely. As its name indicates, Sixmilebridge is located approximately six miles from Thomondgate in Limerick and is the site of a bridge erected over the O’Garney river in 1610 by Donough O’Brien, fourth Earl of Thomond.
Of particular interest in Dinely’s account of this part of the country is his reference to a castle ‘belonging to Henry Ivers, Esq, well scituate and capable of very considerable improvement, a draught whereof I took on the other side of this leaf…The gentleman, owner hereof, came over (a young man, clerk to one Mr Fowles, a Barrister), since the King’s Restoration, and hath in this time by his Industry, acquired one Thousand pounds a year. The first and chiefest of his rise was occasioned by being concerned in the Revenue as Clerk to the King’s Commissioners for settling the Quit Rents, and afterwards became their Deputy receiver, is now in commission one of his Ma’ties Justice of the Peace, not worth less than sixteen hundred pounds a year.’
Dinely is not altogether accurate since Henry Ivers had actually come to Ireland prior to the Restoration of 1660, being one of the beneficiaries of Cromwell’s sweep across the country. Quit rent was a tax imposed on new settlers granted land by the government and clearly whoever was responsible for its collection could do well, as indeed Ivers did. (By the time of his death in October 1691 he had acquired some 12,000 acres, of which almost half was deemed to be ‘profitable.’) But the great merit of Dinely’s work is that, as he wrote, he included a ‘draught’ or drawing of the old castle owned by Ivers and showing it to be a typical tall tower house of the kind built throughout Ireland in the 16th and early 17th centuries. A massive stone chimney piece in the south hall of the castle’s replacement, presumed to have been salvaged when the latter was demolished, carries the date 1648, which would have made its construction very late for such a building.

When Henry Ivers died, he left his estate to a second son, the eldest having been disinherited for marrying without his father’s approval, perhaps to a Roman Catholic. John Ievers (as the family now began to spell its name) was Colonel-in-Chief of the Clare Militia Dragoons and an MP for sixteen years. When he died in 1731, his heir – another Henry – clearly decided Dinely had been right half a century before that the old castle was ‘capable of very considerable improvement’ since he knocked it down and built a new house on the site, ever after called Mount Ievers.
We are in the rare position of knowing a great deal about the origins of the house, since the accounts for its construction survive. Mount Ievers was designed by the architect John Rothery (with his son Isaac assuming responsibility for the project after Rothery senior’s death in 1736) and work began in 1733 with completion four years later.
During this time masons working on site were paid five shillings a week, and general labourers five pence. In an average week 11 of the former and 48 of the latter were employed, with the labourers receiving not just their wages but also food and clothes including shoes and supplies of coarse linen woven at Mount Ievers. The house cost £1,478 pounds, seven shillings and nine pence to build, but Henry Ievers noted sundry other expenses incurred such as two horses he had given the architect valued at £15, as well as two mules (£4 and twelve shillings) and 3,000 laths (£1 and ten shillings). Slates priced at nine shillings six pence per thousand came from Broadford ten miles away, while the oak roof timbers, thirty-four tons in weight, came from Portumna; they were brought by boat to Killaloe and then hauled twenty miles overland to the site.

Writing about Mount Ievers in Country Life in November 1962, Mark Girouard proposed its design derived from that of Chevening in Kent, a house attributed to Inigo Jones and featured in the second volume of Colen Campbell’s Vitruvius Brittanicus (1717). Certainly there are many similarities between the two buildings and as Girouard pointed out, ‘an unusual feature shared by both houses, which makes it unlikely that the relation is a coincidence, is the stone cornice with pulvinated frieze below the eaves.’ Of course Mount Ievers was rather anachronistic by the time it was built, but that somehow adds to the place’s charm, as do the two fronts, that to the north faced in brick, that to the south in cut limestone, both of them of seven bays, three storeys over raised basement and with entrances approached by flights of steps. A detail missing from the accounts of the house is the source for the bricks; it is customarily proposed that they came from Holland, a Dutch mill owner who lived near Sixmilebridge shipping rape seed oil to his native country and the vessels on their return bringing bricks to act as ballast. Today after almost three centuries they have mellowed to a soft pink hue lightly dusted with lichen. The west and east sides of the house are rendered with very few windows other than those at either end of corridors running along the centre of each floor.
The tall narrow windows with their thick glazing bars (some of them restored in the last century having been earlier replaced by larger panes of glass), add to the impression of height as does a curious feature of the design whereby each storey is several inches narrower than that below, something almost undetectable to the eye until it is pointed out. The walls are very thick, between four and five feet, and so the entirety of the basement is a series of vaulted chambers needed to support this immense weight.

The interior of Mount Ievers is relatively simple, with most of the rooms retaining their original plaster panelling, elaborate cornices and panelled doors set in doorcases eight and half feet high. The north entrance hall, which takes up about a third of the ground floor includes a wonderful carved staircase, barley-sugar and fluted balusters alternating. This in turn leads to a very substantial first-floor hall off which open the main bedrooms. On the top floor is a long vaulted gallery, intended to provide a space in which ladies could walk on wet days or to serve as a ballroom, or possibly both. There are some very attractive chimneypieces in the ground floor rooms but these date from the second half of the 18th century and were installed around 1850.
In fact, these small changes made at that time were really the only significant ones the house has experienced. The Ievers family, although initially wealthy and powerful, gradually became neither, and it was a want of funds and of the need to impress that led their house to remain largely unaltered. A mural painted over the mantel in the drawing room not long after the house was completed shows the north front exactly as it is today, and while much of the surrounding formal gardens shown have disappeared other elements like the two brick sentry boxes at the end of the garden remain.
Mount Ievers is a place of quite haunting loveliness, a house that captures the hearts of everyone who has ever visited. ‘Magic is an overworked word,’ commented Mark Girouard, ‘but there is undoubtedly a magic about Mount Ievers. It is a mysterious house, shut away among woods with no outlet to the outer world.’ Similarly Maurice Craig, although observing that the house’s interior ‘is very grand but very, very inconvenient’ had to acknowledge ‘But for the pleasure of living in such a house one would endure much.’ Mount Ievers remains in the hands of the same family for whom it was first built. This adds to its exceptional character and so one hopes that long may an Ievers continue to be in residence.

Masking the Obvious

Nov30

A window shutter in the library of Mount Stewart, County Down. This is located in what is now the west wing, the section designed by English architect George Dance the younger c.1804. Dance had visited the house in 1795 when he came to Ireland with his supposed lover Lady Elizabeth Pratt, sister of the new Lord Lieutenant Lord Camden. She was also sister-in-law of Mount Stewart’s then-owner Robert Stewart, first Baron Londonderry (later first Marquess of Londonderry) who early in the new century decided to enlarge his property and called upon Dance’s services. However, we know the architect did not come to Ireland again until 1815, instead sending drawings from London which were executed by John Ferguson, the estate carpenter. Note how the shutter’s prosaic function is concealed by being lined with leather bindings in imitation of those books filling the surrounding library shelves, a deft touch on the part of either Dance or Ferguson.

Colour Burst

Nov13

A blue and white Wedgwood jasper ware disc inserted into a marble chimneypiece on the first floor rear drawing room of 45 Merrion Square, Dublin now the offices of the Irish Architectural Archive. This hard stoneware pottery developed by Josiah Wedgwood in 1775 was soon used not for making cups or vases but to produce such items as plaques and discs which could be used in the decoration of rooms. So it is in two rooms at 45 Merrion Square where the plain white of the chimneypiece is relieved by bursts of vivid colour.

An Arthurian Legend

Nov4

In a diary entry dated 27th February 1853 Elizabeth Smith of Baltiboys, County Wicklow (known to her many posthumous admirers as the Highland Lady since she was of Scottish origin) wrote, ‘Mr Kavanagh has been burned to death, his fine old name and large fortune fall to that poor object, his brother, a poor cripple without either arms or legs only stumps. In this miserable condition he hunts! tied to his basket saddle, holding the reins between his mouth and shoulder, and he rides hard! He draws, writes, is really accomplished and intelligent. An old prophesy, it seems, foretold that the house of Borris would end with a cripple. Strange if true.’
An entire post could be written about Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh, and indeed he has been the subject of more than one book. As Mrs Smith notes he was born without full limbs, both his arms and legs stopping well short of the flexible joint. Yet neither he nor his family allowed this impediment to hinder him: in his teens he set off with his eldest brother – who suffered from tuberculosis – on a journey through Russia, Persia and India (where he got a job as a dispatch rider) and although the older sibling died, Arthur survived and indeed returned to Ireland when his middle brother was killed in a fire in 1853 and he thus unexpectedly became heir to the family estate of Borris, County Carlow.
Once there, he led a full life: he hunted, he fished, he shot, he sailed, he sat as an M.P. in Westminster for many years. He also did much to improve his lands and the condition of his tenants, not least by bringing a railway line to Borris at his own expense. An amusing story indicates how little attention he paid to his physical handicap. Having caught a train to Abbeyleix to visit Lady de Vesci, he commented to his hostess, ‘It is quite extraordinary. I have not been here for over ten years and yet the station-master still remembered me.’

The MacMurrough Kavanaghs are an extremely old Irish family: in 1814 its then-head commissioned an illustrated book called ‘The pedigree of the ancient illustrious noble and princely house of Kavanagh in ancient times monarchs of Ireland and at the period of the invasion of Ireland by Henry the second, Kings of Leinster.’ This volume, which cost the considerable sum of £615 and two shillings, and took four years to complete, traced the family’s origins back to 1670 BC.
It is notable that while the book’s title referenced the arrival of the Normans in Ireland, it did not mention the part played by an ancestor in bringing about this occurrence. In the mid-12th century Diarmait mac Murchadha was King of Leinster until dispossessed of his title by the High King of Ireland for having abducted Derbforgaill, wife of Tiernan O’Rourke, King of Breifne. In order to regain his kingdom, mac Murchadha pledged an oath of allegiance to Henry II and received the support of Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, better known as Strongbow who married mac Murchadha’s daughter Aoife. Thus the MacMurrough Kavanaghs’ forebear was responsible for first encouraging the original Norman invasion of Ireland. Subsequent members of the family were not always so willing to bow to overseas authority: in the late 14th/early 15th century Art Mac Murchadha Caomhánach proved a formidable King of Leinster who regained full authority and control of territory. Yet in November 1550 Cahir mac Art Kavanagh appeared before the Lord Lieutenant Sir Anthony St Leger in Dublin where he ‘submitted himself, and publicly renounced the title and dignity of Mac Morough, as borne by his ancestors.’

Borris has long been part of the MacMurrough Kavanaghs’ lands. It is believed that the core of the present house was built by Brian Kavanagh enclosing at least parts of a 15th century castle on the site. A date stone over the front entrance carries the inscription AD MDCCXXXI and thereby proposes that part of the building was completed by that year. It is likewise assumed that this house was classical in style, a reflection of what was happening elsewhere in the country as a result of changing architectural tastes and a more settled environment.
During this period the Kavanaghs made a series of advantageous marriages and by the end of the 18th century they owned some 30,000 acres spread over three counties: three successive generations married daughters of the well-connected and wealthy Butler family. In 1778 Thomas Kavanagh assumed responsibility at Borris for his sister-in-law Lady Eleanor Butler after she attempted to run away with Sarah Ponsonby. His efforts, however, proved futile and eventually the two women were allowed to move to Wales where as the Ladies of Llangollen they lived for over fifty years (for some more on this, see Of Wondrous Beauty Did the Vision Seem, May 13th).
During the uprising of 1798 Borris was subject to assault by the rebels and buildings were burnt but not, it would seem, the main house. Walter MacMurrough Kavanagh wrote to his brother-in-law that although a turf and coal house were set on fire and efforts made to bring ‘fire up to the front door under cover of a car on which were raised feather beds and mattresses’ yet these were unsuccessful.
It has sometimes been asserted that the reason why Borris was comprehensively remodelled in the second decade of the 19th century to the designs of those indefatigable architects the Morrisons père et fils, was because of damage inflicted in 1798 but an admirable new book* on the design and furnishing of the house pours doubt on this notion. Instead it would appear that Walter MacMurrough Kavanagh, who was also responsible for commissioning the illustrated volume tracing his pedigree, wished to give more tangible evidence of the family’s long history than did a classical house.

Superbly located on a raised site with views across to the Blackstairs Mountains Borris as we now see it displays signs of stylistic schizophrenia, not least in differences between the house’s exterior and interior. The former is cloaked in Tudoresque mannerisms with symmetrical battlements and finials, a central entrance portico with pointed arches and four corner turrets which until the middle of the last century were topped with octagonal lanterns. Each side of the window mouldings is finished with the head of a king or queen indicating the ancestry of the MacMurrough Kavanagh family. John Preston Neale included an engraving of the newly-completed Borris in his 1822 work Views of the seats of noblemen and gentlemen in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland and then described the house as being ‘of the period of Henry the Eighth, of which period, though so many beautiful examples are extant in England, yet in this country, Borris may be considered as unique.’
When Samuel Lewis wrote of the house in 1837 he observed that Borris ‘exhibits the appearance of an English baronial residence of the 16th century, while every advantage of convenience and splendour is secured within.’ Those advantages apparently included the ornate classicism which reigns internally. This is especially so in the entrance hall which although a square was given a circular ceiling by the Morrisons who treated it as a rotunda with extremely ornate plasterwork incorporating garlands, masks, shells and wonderfully three-dimensional eagles, the whole coming to rest on a series of scagliola columns around the walls. Likewise one end of the dining room has a recess containing service doors this space created by another pair of Ionic scagliola columns. The treatment of the stairs and landing reverts somewhat to an earlier era, not least thanks to a large arched window, the upper portion of which is filled with stained glass featuring the family coat of arms.

Borris today is not as was designed by the Morrisons in the early 19th century. In the 1950s the service wing which connected the main building with the chapel was demolished, leaving the latter looking somewhat forlorn to one side. And the lanterns that topped the corner turrets were also removed. The greater part of the family land had gone, and with it much of the wealth. For a while the very future of the house looked perilous: for one of the very first Irish Georgian Society bulletins published in 1958 Lady Rosemary FitzGerald who had grown up in the place (her mother was a Kavanagh) wrote a piece called ‘A Valediction to Borris House’ in which she predicted ‘the house will soon be empty and roofless. The daws which possess the chimneys of every traditional Irish house will have the walls as well. This is inevitable. The house has been so rebuilt, altered, enlarged and generally muddled since the original keep was built in the ninth century that it is now impossible to maintain. It still needs the battalions of servants and unlimited cheap fuel that poured into the house until the First World War left so many big houses in reduced circumstances.’ Thankfully she was proven wrong and Borris still stands, a testimony to the staunchness of the MacMurrough Kavanaghs, the latest generation of which has this year assumed responsibility for the place. Borris may not be as big as was once the case, nor able to rely on the income of a large estate but there are now other ways of making a house pay for itself and all of these are being put to use.
And Mrs Smith’s citing of an old prophesy ‘that the house of Borris would end with a cripple’ also proved incorrect because Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh married and had seven children. Below is a portrait of the redoubtable character that still hangs in Borris, like the house itself a testimony to the triumph of will over circumstances.
*Borris House, County Carlow and Elite Regency Patronage by Edmund Joyce (Four Courts Press)

For more information on Borris, see http://www.borrishouse.com

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