A Pocket Mansion




Currently for sale, this miniature Tudorbethan house stands a short distance north-east from the site of Kiltanon, County Clare. A substantial property, the latter was built in the 1830s for the Molonys, an ancient Irish family, one of whom – John O’Molony, Roman Catholic Bishop of Limerick – followed James II to Paris where he helped to found the Irish College, in which he was buried following his death in 1702. In Ireland, the Molonys subsequently converted to the Established Church but they kept a souvenir of their Catholic forebear: a grey marble table inlaid with two hands of old French cards and a knave of diamonds torn in half as if they had just been thrown down. Seemingly, this piece of furniture had been presented by Louis XIV to the bishop in restitution for the king’s fit of pique over a game of cards in which the cleric was a participant. The table was supposedly lost, along with the rest of Kiltanon’s contents, when the building was burnt by the IRA in September 1920. Given its (somewhat weathered) appearance, it would appear that this little house was once part of the Molony estate and constructed around the same time as the main residence itself.