One of the series of doors found at the base of the stairs in the south hall at Ballyhaise, County Cavan. While the core of the house dates from c.1730, this part of the building was extensively remodelled and extended early in the following century. The doorcases, with their ribbed pilasters and feathered capitals beneath expansive arched fans, date from that period.
For more about Ballyhaise, see Made to Last For Ever, March 9th 2015.
‘Therefore his servants said to him, “Let a young woman be sought for my lord the king, and let her wait on the king and be in his service. Let her lie in your arms, that my lord the king may be warm”.’ (1 Kings 1:2).
William Ponsonby-Barker of Kilcooley, County Tipperary was an ardent evangelical Christian and in the years prior to his death in 1877 he would habitually emulate the example of King David in the Old Testament, and take a young woman to bed with him – strictly for the purposes of keeping his elderly body warm. The human hot water bottle would, it is said, be chosen from among the housemaids lined up after evening prayers. In his book Twilight of the Ascendency (1987) Mark Bence-Jones tells that on one occasion, the maid selected by Ponsonby-Barker ‘offended his olfactory sensibilities, so he sprinkled her liberally from a bottle which he took in the dark to contain eau de cologne but which in fact contained ink!’ Of course it may be that the owner of Kilcooley was following the strictures of his late mother. According to the American Quaker Asenath Nicholson who recorded a visit to the estate in her 1847 book Ireland’s Welcome to the Stranger, ‘the pleasure of walking over these delightful fields is enhanced by the knowledge that his tenants are made so happy by his kindness. To every widow he gives a pension of £12 a year; and to every person injuring himself in his employment, the same sum yearly, as long as the injury lasts. His mother was all kindness, and her dying injunction to him was, “To be good to the poor”…His mother, whom he ardently loved, was buried in a vault on the premises; and his grief at her death was such that he left the domain for twelve months. He supports a dispensary for the poor, who resort to it twice a week, and receive medicine from a physician who is paid some sixty pounds a year for his attendance.’
From the 12th century onwards Kilcooley belonged to the Cistercian order which built a fine abbey there. Following the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1540s, the land passed into the possession of the Butlers, Earls of Ormonde. In 1636 the twelfth earl (and future first Duke of Ormonde) in turn sold Kilcooley to the Norfolk-born judge Sir Jerome Alexander for £4,200. Following his death in 1670, the estate was bequeathed to a daughter Elizabeth Alexander, on the condition that she did not marry an Irishman. In the event her husband was another lawyer, William Barker who had been born in Essex: he had already been granted 3,300 acres in Limerick in 1667 and received a further 1,300 acres in Tipperary in 1678; three months prior to his marriage in June 1676 he was made a baronet, the first of four all confusingly bearing the same first name. Successive Sir William Barkers lived in the mediaeval Kilcooley Abbey, adapted as a private residence. However, each of them also seems to have considered the notion of building a new residence, only the last of the line doing so. On succeeding his father at some date on or before 1719, the second baronet thought to construct both an alternative house and an adjacent market town but in the event did neither. Following the marriage of his heir in July 1736 to Mary Quin of Adare Sir William wrote of plans to build ‘as fine and elegant a private gentleman’s seat as any in Europe and inland market as ye country could afford, instead of botching it now about old Abbey walls not proper adapted to be anything called polite’. But nothing happened either then or until around the time the last Sir William inherited Kilcooley on the death of his father in 1770. Ten years earlier he had married Catherine Lane and around this time was handed responsibility for the estate. A stone in the stable yard bearing the date 1762 certainly suggests work was done on the property then, so perhaps the core of the present house dates from the same period.
As built by the fourth Barker baronet, Kilcooley conformed to the Palladian style then beginning to go out of fashion; this certainly suggests an earlier date than c.1790 which was traditionally given. Owing to alterations made in the 19th century after a fire, it is difficult to see the original form of the house. Looking towards a lake created in 1789 at the cost of just over £442 the entrance front is of seven bays and two storeys over elevated basement. Arched links on either side lead to pedimented pavilions and these in turn link to quadrants giving access to service yards: rubble-filled niches and oculi visible beneath later render hint at the building’s earlier form. The garden front looks across parkland towards the romantic ruins of the old abbey. On this side, the house has a central breakfront of three bays broken up by four giant Ionic limestone pilasters and ending in a parapet supporting eagles and urns. Access on this side, as on the entrance front, is via a double flight of balustraded stone steps. Single bays on either side lead, again as on the other side of the house, to pedimented pavilions and thence to a further run of buildings, including a pretty hexagonal model dairy. The aforementioned fire – of which more below – gutted the central block of the house (Asenath Nicholson specifically mentions the loss of a fine library) but appears to have spared the wings. Thus it is possible to gain a sense of the interior of Kilcooley in these sections of the building. On one side, for example, there is a fine cantilevered stone staircase which looks to be 18th century (and although intended for use by servants is actually handsomer than that used by the owners). At the other end of the house are a couple of rooms with tall lugged doorcases and coved ceilings. One of these still retains its arabesque rococo stuccowork, as well as a tall, slender marble chimneypiece.
The strict Christian beliefs of William Ponsonby-Baker may have led to the fire that destroyed the central block of Kilcooley. One day in 1839 a woman arrived at the house with a small child who, she said, had been fathered by the butler, a Mr Ashby. So shocked was Ponsonby-Barker by his employee’s behaviour that he immediately fired Ashby: as the house maids had already discovered, there were consequence to being in service at Kilcooley. In revenge, Ashby packed the chimney in the library with paper and set it alight. As a result, the building was gutted and as Asenath Nicholson commented ‘An elegant library was lost’ along with many of the other contents. Kilcooley’s owner set about rebuilding the house, where work was completed in 1843. Certain alterations were made at this time to both exterior and interior. Regarding the latter, canted bay windows were inserted on the ground floor of both the entrance and garden fronts (originally those on the main facade were bows), and a second storey with balustrade loggias added to the links between main block and wings, as a result of which the building gained space but lost some of its lightness. Internally, a new main cantilevered stone staircase was created to one side, lit by an arched window on the return. An enfilade of reception rooms overlooks the mediaeval abbey on the garden side; these appear to be following the original house’s ground plan, although a portion of the central room was shaved off to create an antechamber. Meanwhile to the front one finds the dining room and library: both of these are half-paneled in oak, as is the entrance hall between them. This last is unquestionably Kilcooley’s most striking feature, an enormous double-height space with first floor gallery, the whole lit by a glazed dome: interestingly hot water pipes run around the base of the dome, evidently in an effort to ensure the gallery wasn’t too cold. Below runs a vast basement, with a central passage providing access to a wealth of storage and staff rooms, including in one of the wings a lofty kitchen, again probably part of the original building as it still has a central octagon through which smoke would once have escaped.
The south-facing garden front of Corravahan, County Cavan. Dating from c.1840 the building shares many characteristics with the slightly earlier and considerably larger See House at Kilmore in the same county (see See and Believe, September 14th last). This is hardly surprising as both were designed by the same architect, William Farrell. Just as importantly whilst Corravahan was commissioned by then-local rector, the Rev. Marcus Gervais Beresford, the See House had been built on the instructions of his father, George de la Poer Beresford, Bishop of Kilmore. Ultimately Marcus Beresford would succeed to the same bishopric (by then united with the See of Ardagh) before being appointed Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland in 1862. His immediate predecessor in this position was a cousin, Lord John George de la Poer Beresford: one might almost suspect nepotism was a feature of the 19th century Anglican church in Ireland. The present owners of Corravahan, who have spent recent years restoring the house, believe the ground floor bay window to the left is a later addition, perhaps added by a subsequent owner, the Rev. Charles Leslie or a member of his family.
Mention has been made recently of George IV’s visit to Ireland in 1821, and the time he spent with his mistress Lady Conyngham in Slane Castle, County Meath. Here is a view of the ceiling in the castle’s saloon on which – if any horizontal position was assumed during the time spent there – he likely gazed. The history of the building’s construction and decoration is complex, and seems to have involved a number of architects. It has been proposed that an amalgam of Francis Johnston and Thomas Hopper was responsible for the design of the saloon, its historically inaccurate but delightful Gothic dome from c.1813 featuring twenty miniature fan vaults which lie between the same number of ribs all leading to a central boss from which is suspended the single candelabra.
One of the most persistent myths in this country is that 17th and 18th century legislation collectively known as the Penal Laws was specifically anti-Irish. This was not the case. A similar series of laws was also passed by the Parliament in London and with the same aim: to place at disadvantage anyone, regardless of nationality, not a member of the Established (that is Anglican) Church. From the second half of the 17th century onwards in England, Wales and Scotland, as in Ireland, all non-conformists were excluded from civil and military office, and were not permitted to receive a degree from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. England’s Corporation Act of 1661, for example, obliged all municipal officials to take Anglican communion thereby ensuring non-conformists were unable to hold public office. The Act of Uniformity introduced the following year made the Anglican Book of Common Prayer compulsory at religious services (over 2,000 clergy found it impossible to comply with this obligation and accordingly resigned their positions). The Penal Laws were harsh towards denominations other than Roman Catholic. Presbyterians for example found it just as challenging to practice their faith and this explains why so many members of the sect (estimated to have been more than 400,000) having moved to Ulster in order to escape persecution, during the 18th century emigrated to colonial America where they were able to enjoy greater religious liberties.
It is true that for a long time Roman Catholics were looked upon with particular suspicion by successive British governments. This was at least in part because the Papacy forbade Catholics from taking the Oath of Supremacy which declared the English monarch to be rightful head of that country’s church; even without state legislation Catholics thus debarred themselves from holding public office since swearing the oath was a legal requirement for anyone wishing to do so. The Act of Settlement passed in 1701 by the English parliament remains in force to the present day, and continues to prevent a member of that country’s royal family from becoming or marrying a Catholic and still retaining rights of succession. The English, like the Irish, can have long memories: until the 19th century they would recall Regnans in Excelsis, the bull issued by Pius V in 1570 which declared Elizabeth I to be a heretic and released her subjects from allegiance to the queen, as well as summarily excommunicating anyone who had obeyed her orders. And even today they remember the Gunpowder Plot, the 410th anniversary of which falls in a few weeks’ time: that occasion in November 1605 when a group of Roman Catholics planned to blow up the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament by James I. Even though anti-Catholic legislation was gradually repealed or allowed to fall into abeyance, as late as 1780 hostility against Catholics was virulent in some quarters. In that year and in reaction to the Papists Act of 1778 the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots broke out in London; the resultant looting and destruction was more serious than any civil disturbance since seen in the English capital.
Despite the many disadvantages under which they suffered, not least grave financial penalties, some Roman Catholic families in England, Wales and Scotland continued to practise their faith and to hold onto their property. Known as Recusants owing to their refusal to attend Anglican services, the story of their survival was told by Mark Bence-Jones in his 1992 book The Catholic Families. This is by way of a preamble to noting that likewise in Ireland even in the face of the Penal legislation a number of old Gaelic and Hiberno-Norman families somehow managed to hold onto both their religion and their land. The history of some of them can in turn be read in the 1997 book Grace’s Card: Irish Catholic Landlords 1690-1800 by Charles Chenevix Trench (whose great-grandfather had been Anglican Archbishop of Dublin from 1863-1886). The Prestons, who as Lords Gormanston were bearers of the oldest vicomital title in Britain and Ireland retained their estate in County Meath, as did the Plunketts who as Earls of Fingall held the premier earldom in this country. Other untitled families likewise kept some, if not all of their former lands. The Hiberno-Norse Deases are known to have settled in what is now Westmeath in the second half of the 13th century. There they remained until the upheavals of the 16th and 17th centuries during which they were dispossessed on several occasions, yet kept returning to their ancestral estate. Throughout this and subsequent eras, and regardless of the rigour of the Penal Laws to which they like everyone else was subject, they also remained true to the Roman Catholic faith of their forebears. Among their number, Thomas Dease served as Catholic Bishop of Meath from 1622-51 having previously acted as rector of the Irish seminary in Paris.
In the first years of the 19th century the Deases built a new house on the site of an earlier property. Called Turbotstown this Greek-revival building’s design has long been attributed to the prolific Francis Johnston and indeed aspects of Turbotstown bear similarities to other examples of his work. The cut-limestone exterior is severe, of three bays and two storeys with a central Ionic columned porch marking the entrance: a first floor Wyatt window is of the same width as the half-glazed double doors beneath. To one side is a lower two-storey wing which then wraps around to incorporate a service yard: in part of this can be found the Deases’ former private chapel where presumably they worshipped prior to providing the land for the construction of a Roman Catholic church nearby. The main block has a dignified simplicity which emphasises the generous proportions of the high-ceilinged rooms. The house’s most striking feature is its inner hall, the centre of its ceiling opening to a first-floor circular gallery above which in turn rises an octagonal lantern which provides light for otherwise windowless areas. In an adjoining double-height space the cantilevered staircase lit by a large arched window on the return has decorative wrought-iron balusters supporting a mahogany handrail. Indeed space and grace are the two distinguishing features of Turbotstown. Although the Deases ceased to occupy the house in the last century and it passed for a period into other hands, eleven years ago it was bought back by descendants of the family. Since then the present owners have been engaged in the restoration of Turbotstown, a fitting tribute to an old Irish Roman Catholic family which remained in possession of its property throughout the dark days of the Penal Laws and beyond.
Today the visit of George IV to Ireland in 1821 is primarily remembered because it is believed to have led to the road between Dublin and Slane, County Meath being made as straight as possible. But the event was noteworthy for other reasons, not least due to the fact this was the first time a reigning English monarch had arrived in the country without bellicose intentions (as had last been the case when James II and his son-in-law fought here for control of the British throne, with the latter victorious at the Battle of the Boyne in July 1690). The original arrangement would have had George IV land south of the capital at Dunleary, from whence he would set out to make a formal entry into the city. However following the death of his estranged wife Caroline of Brunswick just days before the visit was due to begin, it was felt expedient a more low-key approach be taken to the king’s arrival. Accordingly the royal party landed on August 12th 1821 at Howth harbour where the fifty-nine year old monarch made an immediate impression on the waiting crowd by displaying symptoms of being, to use modern parlance, tired and emotional after the rigours of his passage across the Irish Sea. (Incidentally, his footprints, memorialised by a local stonemason, can still be seen on Howth’s west pier). He flung himself into the throng, shaking hands with anyone within reach before being put into a carriage that set off for the Phoenix Park and the Viceregal Lodge. On arrival there, the king again abandoned protocol by insisting the park gates be thrown open and, in descending from his carriage, making an impromptu speech during which he declared, ‘rank, station and honour are nothing: to feel that I live in the hearts of my Irish subjects, is to me the most exalted happiness.’ No wonder one commentator observed that he was behaving not as a sovereign but ‘like a popular candidate come down upon an electioneering trip.’
Despite national woes due to the economic downturn following the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, and indeed owing to the consequences of the 1800 Act of Union, George IV’s visit had been keenly anticipated. It helped that he had expressed a wish everyone he met during his time in Ireland should be wearing locally-produced clothing, thereby giving a boost to trade. In addition, he asked that Lord Forbes, son of the Roman Catholic Earl of Granard, be one of his aides-de-camp for the duration of the visit, and he arranged to act as witness for the installation of the Earl of Fingall as the first Catholic member of the Order of St. Patrick. For his own official entry into Dublin – this was after a period of recovery in the Viceregal Lodge – he wore the order’s ribbon over a full military uniform, shamrock on his hat and on his breast a rosette ‘more than twice the size of a military cockade’: no wonder comparisons were made with election candidates. The formal procession of some 200 carriages began by making its way down Sackville (now O’Connell Street) accessed via temporary gates for which keys were handed to the king by the Herald, Athlone Pursuivant. Progress was slow due to the crowds, and this set the tone for subsequent events, all of which attracted enormous and consistently enthusiastic attendance. The welcome he received in Ireland was in striking contrast to his unpopularity in England, and more than once he noted the difference between the ‘triumph of Dublin’ and the ‘horrors of London’ where he was often booed in the streets. Up to the day of departure, on 5th September and from Dunleary which was then renamed Kingstown in his honour, the numbers following his course never diminished and the visit concluded with Daniel O’Connell – Ireland’s so-called Liberator – kneeling before the monarch and proferring a laurel wreath
For members of Ireland’s aristocracy, George IV’s visit was especially significant since it appeared to offer them an opportunity to entertain their monarch. Still today there are a number of State Bedrooms created in 1821 in expectation of a royal guest. The best-known of these is in Castle Coole, County Fermanagh but another can be found in Loughton, County Offaly (in recent years this has been home to Minister for Children and Youth Affairs James Reilly but it is now on the market). Alas the hopes of many prospective hosts were dashed, because while the king did make a few excursions out of Dublin – notably to Powerscourt, County Wicklow where by lingering over luncheon he avoided being swept away by the waterfall, damned in anticipation of his arrival, which burst through its barricades and swept away the viewing platform – outside Dublin he stayed for several nights in one place only: Slane Castle, County Meath. For those unfamiliar with the tale, herein lies the explanation for the fast straight road from the capital: Slane was the home of George IV’s mistress, the Marchioness Conyngham, and her accommodating husband. Neither the king nor his inamorata were in the first flush of youth, and both were equally corpulent. These circumstances however did nothing to dampen their ardour. As was written of them at the time, ‘Tis pleasant at seasons to see how they sit/ First cracking their nuts, and then cracking their wit/ Then quaffing their claret – then mingling their lips/ Or tickling the fat about each other’s hips.’ And according to one contemporary observer, Lady Conyngham ‘lived exclusively with him during the whole time he was in Ireland at the Phoenix Park. When he went to Slane, she received him dressed out as for a drawing-room; he saluted her, and they then retired alone to her apartments.’ Hence those other State Bedrooms going abegging…
One house that did receive a royal visit was Annesbrook, County Meath – presumably because its location was not too off the route to Slane. Annesbrook is a relatively modest country residence which may have begun as a farm house before being extended westwards in either the late 18th or early 19th century. The front of the building is of two storeys and three bays, the emphatic arch of the centre groundfloor entrance echoed in the shallow relieving window arches to either side. Inside, the hall is divided by a screen of Corinthian columns, the stairs snaking upward inside a bow to the north. That might have been the limit of the house had not its owner in 1821, one Henry Smith, decide to improve the property in anticipation of the king coming to call. Thus he aggrandised the facade by the addition of an enormous limestone portico comprising four Ionic-capped columns beneath a pediment that soars above Annesbrook’s shallow hipped roof. Then to the north of the main block he constructed a single storey, four bay extension in which to entertain the king to lunch. While the exterior of this is plain, the interior, accessed via a antechamber off the dining room, is a riot of gothick decoration, a late flowering of the 18th century style prior to the advent of historical accuracy. Whether on the ceiling, walls or even the marble chimneypiece, Annesbrook’s gothick is as much rococo as mediaeval, with an overlay of classical symmetry. The room is a playful frolic, the plasterwork treated like icing sugar ornamentation, an opportunity to demonstrate the unknown stuccodore’s ingenuity and skill. It was always intended as a backdrop for entertainments and that remains the case: the house’s present owner has worked to preserve the room as best as resources allow, and to this end has received assistance from a variety of agencies including the Irish Georgian Society. While sections of the ceiling still require attention, more than sufficient has already been secured for the remaining work to be undertaken once requisite funds become available. Visitors to Annesbrook today can admire Henry Smith’s enterprise, perhaps more than did George IV: seemingly on the day of his visit to the house, the sun shone and the royal guest chose to dine outdoors. Ironically he never even saw the room built to entertain him.
The 19th century boathouse on a stretch of the Rye Water at Carton, County Kildare, supposedly built in anticipation of a visit from Queen Victoria. Carton is among the properties I will be discussing next Saturday, October 10th when I speak on the subject of Building, contents, demesne: Understanding the Holy Trinity of the Country House. This will take place during next weekend’s Northern Ireland Heritage Gardens Committee conference, ‘Art and Architecture in Historic Garden Design’ being held at Hillsborough Castle, County Down. Further information on the event can be found on the NIHGC’s website, www.nihgc.org.
How curious that nobody in recent decades has thought to write a monograph on one of Ireland’s most prolific and talented architects: Francis Johnston. Born in Armagh in 1760, Johnston was effectively ‘discovered’ by the city’s primate Richard Robinson who sent him to Dublin to study with the Archbishop’s architect Thomas Cooley. Following the latter’s death in 1784 Johnston took over many of his commissions, not least Rokeby, County Louth which was Robinson’s country seat (see Building on a Prelate’s Ambition, February 4th 2013). Thereafter his career never faltered and demand for his services was unceasing. Among the most famous examples of his work are the General Post Office in Dublin and, on the other side of the city and in completely different mode, the Chapel Royal in Dublin Castle (of which more in due course). Success allowed him to be singularly generous: appointed second president of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1824 he designed and built the organisation’s premises on Abbey Street (it was one of the casualties of the 1916 Easter Rising, ironically headquartered in another of Johnston’s buildings, the GPO). After he died in 1829 his fabled collection of paintings, sculpture, books, objets d’art and curiosities was unfortunately dispersed. But throughout the country there survive examples of his work and these consistently demonstrate the refinement and assurance of Johnston’s taste. Until recently one of the best examples was Ballynegall, County Westmeath.
Ballynegall dates from 1808 when it was designed for James Gibbons whose family appears to have been involved in banking and other business in Dublin, from whence derived their fortune. Five years earlier he or his father (also called James Gibbons) had bought the estate on which it stands from William Reynell (his forebear Colonel Arthur Reynell had acquired the estate in 172). Seemingly some of the stone from an older property called Castle Reynell was used in the construction of Ballynegall. Evidence of the Gibbons’ affluence is evidenced by the fact the house was renowned for having cost £30,000 to build: an astonishingly substantial figure at the time. James Fraser’s Handbook for Travellers in Ireland (first published 1838) describes Ballynegall as a ‘handsome Grecian mansion’ which ‘accords with the rich and beautiful park around.’ James Gibbons senior died in Cheltenham in 1834, after which the property passed to his son, James junior. He died in 1846 while hunting and since he had no children Ballynegall next passed to a nephew of his wife James William Middleton Berry. On his own death in 1855 the estate was inherited by a cousin Thomas Smyth. Ballynegall remained in the possession of the Smyth family until 1963.
In 1993 Ballnegall was judged by Christine Casey and Alistair Rowan to be ‘a most delightful villa by one of Ireland’s most refined designers – a man of European stature.’ Of six bays and two storeys, its west-facing facade was perfectly plain except for a four-column Greek Ionic portico which defined the entrance. The garden front had deep Wyatt windows flanking a broad central bow. A sunken service wing to the north was matched on the other end of the house by a large mid-19th century cast-iron conservatory attributed to Richard Turner (Casey and Rowan propose this replaced an earlier one designed by Johnston), its roof supported by pilaster shafts with lotus capitals. Internally the house was a model of neo-classical restraint, the groundfloor holding an entrance hall divided into two sections by a screen of Ionic columns. This in turn gave access to the drawing room (which benefitted from the east-facing bow), library, dining room and morning room. A staircase at right angles to the entrance hall and screened from it by a further pair of Ionic columns led via a bow-shaped return to the generous first floor bedroom corridor: the basement featured an equally fine, broad corridor running the length of the building. Throughout the house the plasterwork by George Stapleton was simple but exquisite, in particular the guilotte and palmette friezes running below dentil and foliage cornices. Much of the furniture appears to have been made for the house by Mack, Williams & Gibton (the library’s bookcases look to have been especially fine) but other captivating details included the 19th century wallpapers, that in the drawing room being pink and gilt, and stenciled to represent decorative panels and pilasters.
We are fortunate that Ballynegall and its beautiful interiors were recorded in a series of photographs taken in 1961 just a year before the contents were dispersed on the instructions of Captain Michael Smyth during the course of a three-day auction in July 1962. The sale catalogue lists many fine pieces, all scattered: where are they now, and do the present owners know their provenance? The following year the house and estate were likewise sold, after which Ballynegall went through a couple of owners. In 1981 the house itself was ruthlessly stripped of everything that could be taken out: doors, chimney pieces, columns, even the floorboards pulled up for the value of the timber, and then the building unroofed. The portico now adorns the front of the K Club, County Kildare and the Turner conservatory serves as a restaurant at Lyons Village in the same county. The fate of the rest of the fittings is unknown although some of the chimney pieces apparently ended up in England.
As the photographs taken earlier this year and shown here reveal, Ballynegall has been gradually drifting into oblivion ever since that despoliationh. Back in 1993 Casey and Rowan wrote that the fate of Ballynegall was ‘one of the most tragic consequences of the laissez-faire attitude of successive governments towards the architectural inheritance of the State…There can be little satisfaction in contemplating the lacerated fragment of a Fragonard and still less pleasure in a visit to Ballynegall as it is now.’ Visiting the place is indeed a melancholy experience, not just because the building is in such lamentable condition but also because that condition is a reflection of national indifference towards our own collective heritage. Within many people’s lifetime a fine house, a masterpiece of neo-classical refinement designed by one of Ireland’s greatest architects, has willfully and shamefully been permitted to fall into dereliction. It happened because nobody cried stop. It continues to happen for the same reason…
The brick floor in a back passage of Camphire, County Waterford. Its well-worn state offers something of a contrast to the interiors found on the other side of the green baize door (see Bright and Light, July 8th 2015).
Seen on a stand at this year’s Irish Antiques Fair in the RDS, Dublin: the four limestone capitals (one shown above) of the portico at Mote Park, County Roscommon. Demolished more than half a century ago, the house was built for the Crofton family in the 18th century but greatly enlarged around 1816 to the designs of Sir Richard Morrison; most likely the portico was added then. Although only the capitals are currently on show, the entire portico, for many years owned by a now-deceased cleric, still exists and could be reconstructed.