Tag Archives: New Book

Left Without a Handkerchief


The Irish Aesthete is delighted to announce the publication of his latest book, Left without a Handkerchief. A long time in the making, this tells the stories of ten Irish families across the centuries, leading up to the moment when each of their homes was attacked and most often burned during the troubles of the early 1920s. Whence the title? On January 10th 1923 Louise Bagwell wrote a short letter to her mother-in-law Harriet describing what had taken place during the previous night. Around 12.30am, a large number of men had arrived at Marlfield, County Tipperary, home to generations of the Bagwell family for some 230 years, and informed the occupants they had ten minutes to dress and gather up whatever items they could. Meanwhile, the intruders sprinkled petrol around the ground floor rooms and applied a match. ‘Then’, Louise Bagwell explained, ‘for an hour we had to stand and watch the darling old home burn.’ Only when the fire had done sufficient damage to the building did the men depart: afterwards its chatelaine discovered they had taken her bag and coat with them. Everything had been lost, she lamented, all the family’s possessions going back generations, leaving them with little other than the clothes they had hastily donned: ‘We hadn’t even a handkerchief.’


Photograph shows Ardfert, County Kerry, burnt on 3rd August 1922 and subsequently demolished. Left without a Handkerchief is published by Lilliput Press (please see Left Without a Handkerchief by Robert O’Byrne – The Lilliput Press) 

 

Of the Highest Standard



Townley Hall, County Louth is an Irish country house which has featured here more than once before (see Là, tout n’est qu’ordre et beauté* « The Irish Aesthete). Without doubt, one of the most perfectly designed buildings in Ireland, it was the result of a happy collaboration between architect Francis Johnston and his client Blayney Townley Balfour – and also, crucially, the latter’s sister Anna Maria Townley Balfour whose involvement in the project has until recently been insufficiently understood and appreciated. The result was a masterpiece of neo-classical architecture, a work of impeccable refinement and flawless taste, with the staircase hall at the centre of the house being one of the masterpieces of late 18th century European architecture. Like all such properties in Ireland, Townley Hall has faced challenges, its future at times uncertain, but the present custodians of the building – the School of Philosophy and Economic Science – have carried out much work on site to ensure the survival of this most-important building in our national heritage. And it has now produced a sumptuous book celebrating the glories of the house and its place in the architectural pantheon, to which the Irish Aesthete has contributed several chapters. The standards of the publication are every bit as high as those of Townley Hall, making this a book of interest to anyone possessed of an aesthetic sensibility.



You can also watch me discuss Townley Hall in a short film made for the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art last summer, which is available to view at Townley Hall, Ireland | ICAA Travel Revisited – YouTube

Green Fingered


Regular readers will be aware that over the past couple of years, the Irish Aesthete has devoted much time and attention to the subject of the Irish country house garden and its evolution since the early 17th century. This study has taken a number of forms, including an exhibition of paintings of walled gardens (which show, incidentally, can at present be seen in Kylemore Abbey, County Galway, which has its own restored walled garden), a two-part television documentary, and a conference on the subject. The last of these, held last autumn, has now spawned a book, Digging New Ground: The Irish Country House Garden 1650-1900. Co-edited by Professor Finola O’Kane, the publication contains essays from a wide variety of knowledgeable experts in this field of study, all of whom offer fresh insights into their chosen topic. 





Country house gardens, like country houses themselves, only really begin to appear in Ireland from c.1600 onwards; prior to that date, the only cultivated areas resembling gardens as we know them would have been attached to religious houses, monasteries and convents. In her contribution, Vandra Costello looks at these early domestic gardens and what form they took, much influenced by ideas from Italy, France and Holland, while Terence Reeves-Smyth explores the evolution of the walled garden, once an essential feature of any country house of substance. But while early gardens almost celebrated their artifice, from the mid-18th century onwards, the natural and the romantic – sometimes in conflict, sometimes in harmony – came to dominate horticultural theory and practice alike, influenced by such notable English practitioners as Capability Brown and Humphry Repton. However, during this period Ireland produced her own distinguished garden designers, not least John Sutherland whose highly successful career is examined by Patrick Bowe. Thomas Pakenham looks at the creation of arboretums in this country, and Seamus O’Brien explores the explorers: those intrepid botanical hunters forever in search of new plant species to bring back to Ireland. There are essays on garden buildings by Ruth Musielak, on the effect of technological advances in the production of glass and iron by Laura Johnstone, on evaluations of and improvements in gardening during the 19th century by Finola O’Kane, and an assessment of the Irish country house garden in the 21st century by Catherine FitzGerald. Plus, the Irish Aesthete tells the story of John Hennessy Saul, born into a family of gardeners, who emigrated to the United States where he established a thriving horticultural business, involved in the design and creation of gardeners throughout that country.


John Hennessy Saul was born in December 1819 at Carey’s Wood, a dower house on the Castlemartyr estate owned by the Boyles, Earls of Shannon: appropriately enough, the place, now called Carewswood, is a garden centre. Both Saul’s grandfather and father were gardeners, so it was almost inevitable that this would also be his choice of profession, as was also the case for several of his brothers. After working first in Ireland and then in England for some years, in 1851 he emigrated to the United States where he was almost immediately employed by the country’s most influential landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing, with whom he then worked on the layout of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Following Downing’s untimely death in July 1852, Saul established his own business in the city, and within a few years was running an 80-acre nursery supplying plants to customers from the Atlantic to the Pacific, not least Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Central Park and Prospect Park in New York City, along with many other public and private commissions. Saul’s catalogues often offered opportunities to buy varieties of plants that he had cultivated: charmingly, he tended to call these after his wife. He also wrote regular specialist articles for all the leading horticultural publications of the time, won prizes in all the major competitions then being held and served on a number of important horticultural boards and committees. When the District of Columbia’s Board of Works established a Parks Commission in Washington in 1871, Saul was one of its founding board members and produced plans to increase the number of trees throughout the city: he was serving as the commission’s chairman at the time of his death, aged 77, in May 1897. John Hennessy Saul was clearly a remarkable man, and an outstanding horticulturist who learnt his skills while young and working in an Irish country house garden. Across the centuries, emigration has sent millions of Irish men and women around the world, and it seems probable that at least some of them worked in the same field as Saul, and perhaps enjoyed similar success. Their stories wait to be rediscovered and told, thereby enriching Ireland’s own gardening history.

Hot Off the Presses


Due to be officially launched tomorrow, Paddy Rossmore: Photographs is a collection of images of Irish buildings taken over half a century ago. For several years in the 1960s, Paddy journeyed around the country, often in the company of Mariga Guinness and the Knight of Glin, exploring our architectural heritage and recording buildings which, sadly too often, have subsequently been lost. Although not a professional photographer, he had an intuitive eye (and excellent travelling companions) and soon discovered a natural talent for composition. Only a handful of his pictures have ever been published (some in Country Life) and I am very happy to have collaborated with Paddy in producing a representative collection of the work. While the majority of the houses included still stand, and a few have even been restored, others – as mentioned – are no more. Below is a representative example of the latter category, Kenure Park, County Dublin which other than its monumental portico was demolished in 1978.


Paddy Rossmore: Photographs is published by Lilliput Press and is available from all good bookshops (and online from http://www.lilliputpress.ie), price €25.00

Presents of Mind III


A niche in the façade of Dublin’s Lying-In Hospital, otherwise known as the Rotunda. Designed by Richard Castle, what is now the world’s oldest continuously operating maternity hospital opened on this site in 1757 and takes its popular name from the adjacent Round Room which with accompanying assembly rooms were constructed to raise income for the institution. The hospital’s façade is of Wicklow granite, the use of which is discussed in The Building Site in Eighteenth-Century Ireland written by the late Arthur Gibney (and edited for publication by Livia Hurley and Edward McParland). While a certain amount of investigation has been conducted into the architecture of the Georgian period, the process of construction during the same era is relatively little studied. This is what makes Gibney’s book so fascinating: he has studied contemporary records to discover how buildings both public and private were put together at the time. The first two chapters examine who was responsible for what on a building site, and the various form of contractual arrangements employed whenever work was undertaken. Regarding the latter, several options were available, some of which involved fixing the final cost in advance (carrying an attendant risk that contractors keen to make a good profit might skimp on materials and finish) while what was known as a measured contract ‘paid each trade separately for measured quantities of work based on agreed rates.’ The potential financial gains to be made by builders, especially in large-scale public schemes, were exposed following a parliamentary enquiry in 1752 into a national barracks building programme: this led to the dismissal of the Surveyor General Arthur Jones Nevill in 1752 (he was expelled from Parliament the following year).
Gibney follows with chapters looking at different areas of the building trade covering carpentry, joinery and the timber trade, wall construction, brickwork and stone, roofing and glazing, plastering and painting. The emergence of builder architects like George Semple and the Ensor brothers is also considered; as Gibney observes, ‘Eighteenth-century craftsmen in Irish cities were essentially part of a middle-class milieu with access to the same opportunities as members of the merchant community.’ By the book’s conclusion, the reader has a full understanding of how buildings were constructed in the 18th century and what characteristics distinguished them from equivalent structures in Britain and elsewhere (it transpires the differences are most immediately evident in the way floors were made). Gibney’s work is a most welcome addition to the field of Irish architectural studies and helps to provide a fuller picture of building work in this country during the Georgian period.


The Building Site in Eighteenth-Century Ireland by Arthur Gibney (edited by Livia Hurley and Edward McParland) is published by Four Courts Press.

Presents of Mind I


One of the gates at the entrance of the Keep Gate standing in the grounds of Birr Castle, County Offaly incorporating the Parsons family coat of arms. With machicolations, slit and loop windows, and crenellated battlements, this two-storey miniature castle was designed by Mary, third Countess of Rosse in 1847-8 and constructed as a famine relief project. Well inside the grounds of the estate, the Keep Gate forms part of a star-shaped moat around the castle, the moat being designed by the Countess’s uncle Captain Richard Wharton Middleton.
The Keep Gate is one of many buildings to feature in a splendid new publication Flights of Fancy: Follies, Families and Demesnes in Offaly written by County Architect Rachel McKenna. After initial chapters investigating the nature of follies and other demesne architecture, McKenna goes on to consider in depth fifteen different estates in Offaly, some well-known – like Birr and Charleville – others less familiar such as Ballycumber, Prospect and Acres’ Hall. Running to 348 pages, the work is extensively and admirably illustrated with abundant colour photographs, maps and plans, drawings old and new and many other images to complement the text. Published by Offaly County Council, this is a model of the kind of book all local authorities should be producing: one hopes others will follow Offaly’s lead in demonstrating such pride in the region’s built heritage. Hard to fault and impossible to resist, not least because the volume’s price is a very affordable €30.


Flights of Fancy: Follies, Families and Demesnes in Offaly by Rachel McKenna is published by Offaly County Council.

Brought to Book


In September 1753 Michael O’Reilly wrote from Dublin to the Roscommon-based antiquarian Charles O’Conor ‘I think a man should read books as he eats victuals; surfeits of either cannot be digested; and too many books as too many dishes will cause surfeit.’ The problem for O’Reilly, as for many readers today, was that more volumes were being produced than could be consumed: the market seemed to be ahead of supply. Toby Barnard’s newly-published Brought to Book: Print in Ireland 1680-1784 examines the history of publication here during this period. Barnard notes the steady rise in work being brought out. In the 1680s the average number of new titles published in Dublin was 52: by the 1790s that figure had risen to 480. For a long time Irish authors preferred, if possible, to publish in England, the understandable expectation being that they would thereby earn more and reach a larger audience. Furthermore, because the British government’s Copyright Act of 1710 did not apply to Ireland, authors who published here enjoyed no legal entitlement to payment for their work. While this had an impact on the development of Irish publishing, ultimately the drive towards an indigenous industry was too strong to be resisted.


Barnard notes how many of the books produced here were local editions of work already successful in other countries. Initially interest in books about Ireland attracted little interest, one dealer noting that such volumes were ‘very little noticed by them whom they did most concern.’ But with the passage of time, increased communication and greater awareness of the need to improve the state of the country, work of Irish subject matter increased in appeal – and sales. Then as now, criticism was not always well-received: the English agronomist Arthur Young was much admired when he wrote about his own country – the Dublin Society made him an honorary member in 1771 – but drew a less favourable response when he turned his attention to matters Irish: the first edition of his Tour of Ireland had to be published in London when insufficient subscribers could be found here. Contrary to what is often thought and despite the Penal Laws, devotional books for Roman Catholics were published in Ireland from the 1720s onwards, albeit under a suppositious mainland European imprint. The first work in the Irish language known to have been produced in Dublin for Catholic readers appeared in 1736: intended as an aid for other members of the clergy, it was a series of sixteen sermons by Bishop Gallagher of Raphoe, County Donegal. By the end of the period covered, books such as Charlotte Brooke’s The reliques of Irish poetry (1788) were both recording and celebrating the nation’s ancient culture. As Barnard points out ‘the venerable was valued as evidence of the complex culture in an earlier Ireland.’ The course of this transition is traced in his own book, illustrating how complex cultures also existed here during the early modern period.


Brought to Book: Print in Ireland 1680-1784 by Toby Barnard is published by the Four Courts Press.

Presents of Mind III

turner-de-lond
A view of the northern end of Sackville (now O’Connell) Street as shown in William Turner de Lond’s depiction of the entry of George IV into Dublin on August 17th 1821. The king had actually landed at Howth five days earlier, on his fifty-ninth birthday and in a state of some inebriation: it may have been as a result of the latter that his ‘official’ arrival only took place when it did. The scene shows George IV, the first British monarch to visit Ireland in 130 years (and the first for much longer to come without bellicose intent), standing in his carriage to acknowledge the cheering crowds. This was not a piece of fiction: a contemporary report in The Patriot observed that ‘they never saw any manifestation of popular enthusiasm so heartfelt, as that which hailed his Majesty from, at least, 100,000 persons of all ranks and estates.’ The painting was only one among several produced to commemorate the occasion (a number of artists recognised its commercial potential) and is of interest for showing the Rotunda Hospital in the background as well as the east side of Rutland (now Parnell) Square.
It is one of a number of such works included in a recently-published book, Creating History: Stories of Ireland in Art which accompanies an exhibition of the same name currently running at the National Gallery of Ireland. While at least some of the works discussed are imaginative recreations (such as Samuel Watson’s portrayal of the 11th century Battle of Clontarf, painted in 1844, and James Barry’s Baptism of the King of Cashel by St Patrick, c.1800-1), others provide an invaluable record of how parts of this country looked in the past. Such is the case with the picture shown below, Francis Wheatley’s 1780 picture of the Irish House of Commons. For some observers the interest here would be in identifying some of the political parties included in the work. For others, however, it is especially important for showing how this chamber, designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, looked before being seriously damaged by fire in 1792. Although reconstructed to a simpler design, the House of Commons was abolished eight years later and, as is well-known, when the Parliament building was subsequently bought by the Bank of Ireland, the British government insisted structural changes were made to ensure it could not revert to its original purpose. Creating History: Stories of Ireland in Art examines more than fifty works of art and includes essays by the likes of Professors Tom Dunne and Roy Foster, Róisin Kennedy and Emily Mark-Fitzgerald.

wheatley
Creating History, edited by Brendan Rooney, is published by Irish Academic Press, €24.99. The accompanying exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland continues until January 15th.

Presents of Mind II

silver-6
In 1788 almost 28,000 silver teaspoons were recorded in the ledger of the Dublin Assay Office, an institution established in 1637 – and still in operation today – to assess the purity of all gold and silver manufactured in Ireland. Teaspoons were especially popular both because their small size made them more affordable than other items in the same metal, but also thanks to the rise in consumption of drinks such as tea, coffee and hot chocolate, all of which were sweetened with sugar. By the late 18th century, for example, the average annual consumption of tea in this country is estimated to have been two or three pounds per person. This fascinating information, and much more beside, can be found in a newly-published study of Silver in Georgian Dublin by Dr Alison FitzGerald.
While Irish silver has been well explored by Douglas Bennett and others, the focus of these connoisseur-driven investigations has usually been on matters of style and authorship. FitzGerald on the other hand is representative of a new generation of art historians keen to explore the character of material culture and thus contextualise the object of their attention within its period. This is what she has done so admirably in the present book, which looks at the production, distribution and consumption of silver in Georgian Dublin, and beyond. So, for example, when discussing the increasing popularity of tea over the course of the 18th century, assisted by a gradual reduction in its price, she looks not only at silver tea pots but also the greater use of ceramic vessels, preferable because less expensive. So a household might have a ceramic teapot but also silver sugar tongs (selling for 12 shillings in 1772).
The choice of retail premises from which they could make their purchases, while never as great as that in London (where some Irish grandees preferred to shop for such goods) certainly improved over passing decades, and for local clients had the advantage of offering credit for purchases: FitzGerald provides a number of instances where goldsmiths such as Isaac D’Olier had to advertise that all accounts owing to him had to be settled immediately and in full. Then, as now, it was often cheaper to buy at auction, and these events regularly took place, often following a collector’s death: Charles Cobbe, who became Archbishop of Dublin in 1740 acquired a considerable amount of silverware at the sale of his late father-in-law Sir Richard Levinge’s effects. And silver was regularly melted down and refashioned as tastes, and consumer requirements changed.
Some items survived better than others, not least teaspoons. The set of ten shown above above, dating from c.1800 and carrying the mark of Carden Terry and Jane Williams, was recently sold by Adam’s of Dublin for €2,500. On the other hand, buckles – once a staple in every gentleman’s wardrobe – gradually disappeared as styles of dress altered. In 1788 more than 24,000 silver buckles were sent to be assayed in Dublin, mostly intended for shoes and knee breeches: by 1800 that number had dropped to a mere eighteen. Once deemed redundant, they faced recycling, and accordingly only a certain number can now be found. The pair shown below, today in the collection of the San Antonio Museum of Art, were made c.1790 by Joseph Jackson of Dublin.
Drawing on a huge range of sources ranging from diaries and letters to contemporary guild accounts, inventories and trade ephemera – not to mention the archives of the Dublin Assay Office – Alison FitzGerald’s book is a wonderfully informative, entertaining and engaging read, absolutely packed with information and profusely illustrated with illustrations that complement an already eloquent text. A terrific addition to our knowledge of this period.

silver-2
Silver in Georgian Dublin: Making, Selling, Consuming by Alison FitzGerald is published by Routledge, €80.00

Presents of Mind I

img_9697
The south entrance to Ballyanne, County Wexford, a house built c.1790 for Henry Houghton. It was demolished in 1943 but this wide gatescreen indicates what has been lost. Six rusticated pillars are linked by iron railings and gateposts, while at either end is a matching porters’ lodge, of which now only the front elevations survive, their central windows (now blocked up) flanked by arched niches. Ballyanne’s entrance rightly figures in J.A.K. Dean’s newly published gazetteer The Gate Lodges of Leinster, a remarkable piece of research that appears over twenty years after the same author’s similar work devoted to Ulster’s lodges. This one runs to 416 pages and contains entries for no less than 4,285 buildings: even two centuries ago the profusion of gate lodges in Ireland was noted by visitors (some properties having six or more entrances, each of which had to be manned). Opening with a history of the gate lodge in this part of the country, the text then proceeds county by county, each entry following in alphabetical order with a full historical and architectural account, and a statement of current condition (where still standing).
Dean’s meticulously researched text is complemented by a profusion of illustrations including photographs and architectural drawings, and makes for an engrossing read. On the other hand, the book inspires a certain sense of melancholy, since so many of these miniature treasures have either been demolished (the fate, Dean estimates, of half of all built since the mid-18th century) or left to fall into decay. Their diminutive size can make them unattractive for modern permanent accommodation although, as the Irish Landmark Trust (and its English equivalent) has shown, they can be converted to serve as successful holiday lets. Furthermore, they have often been overlooked by architectural historians whose attention was focussed on what lay at the end of the avenue. But if their interiors were often relatively functional, much care was expended on their exterior appearance, since the lodge served as a statement of the estate owner’s status, and the first point of contact for visitors to the area.
This is a wonderful labour of love, and deserves to be applauded (and rewarded with abundant sales over the coming weeks). The only drawback is that it leaves one hankering for the companion volumes to Connacht and Munster…

img_9707
The Gate Lodges of Leinster: A Gazetteer by J.A.K. Dean is published by Wordwell, €40.00.