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The Delight of Good Design
A first-floor room in Ballinlough Castle, County Westmeath which has preserved its early 18th century wainscotting and corner chimneypiece which, as was the style of the period, lies almost flush with...
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Post No Bills
Last year there was a flurry of correspondence in Irish newspapers about the national postal service’s tendency to remove charming old post boxes without notice and substitute drearily standardised...
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A Bibliophile’s Bliss
In 1971 when Anthony Powell published the tenth volume of his roman fleuve A Dance to the Music of Time he gave it the title Books Do Furnish a Room. Perhaps he was thinking of the library at...
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Step Inside
The entrance to a bedroom on the first floor gallery of Ballinlough Castle, County Westmeath. Probably dating from c.1740, the oak door frame is notable for exaggerated height and narrowness. Its...
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Decorative Dining
A detail of the plasterwork around a door leading from dining room to drawing room at Ballinlough Castle, County Westmeath. This extension to the much earlier house dates from c.1790, its design...
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When Less is Plenty
The handsome cut-limestone pedimented doorcase and sidelights of Huntingdon, County Westmeath. A typical Irish 18th century gentleman farmer’s residence, the house dates from c.1770 and is of three...
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Knock Knock
The popularity of the gothic style for domestic buildings in early 19th century Ireland owed something to a desire among landed families to suggest longer residence here than was often actually the...
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Up and Away
A view of the circular lantern at the top of the back stairs in Tullynally, County Westmeath. Dating from the early 19th century, this was probably designed by James Shiel as part of a programme of...
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Faith of Our Fathers
In his 1997 book Grace’s Card, the late Charles Chenevix Trench debunked the notion that after the passage of Penal Laws at the start of the 18th century all Irish landowners who remained loyal to the...
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La Porte Étroite
The early 18th century entrance to Ballinlough Castle, County Westmeath, an exceptionally tall and narrow door with segmental pediment above, added one suspects to indicate the owners were aware of...
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Urning its Place
An stone urn sitting atop a double plinth closes a flight of terraces at Knockdrin, County Westmeath. In the early 19th century, the heavily-castellated Knockdrin replaced an earlier Georgian house...
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Modest Lodgings
The gate lodge at Rockview, County Westmeath. It must date from around the same period as the main house, built in the early years of the 19th century for a branch of the Fetherston-Haugh family. With...
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Gallia Urba est Omnis Divisa in Partes Tres*
In a book of his photographs published the year he died (2011) architectural historian Maurice Craig included the image above of Gaulstown, County Westmeath which he had taken in 1975. He recalled...
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All Tied Up in a Bow
The double doors leading from drawing to dining room at Ballinlough Castle, County Westmeath are recessed within a large arched bow. And there are further bows evident in the delicate plasterwork that...
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Ascension to Heaven
Despite its name, there is nothing defensive about Bracklyn Castle, County Westmeath. On the contrary, the house dates from c.1790 and in style has been likened to the work of the young John Soane....
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A Votary
Plasterwork decoration in a recessed niche in the dining room of Bracklyn, County Westmeath. The house was built c.1790 by a branch of the Fetherston-Haugh family on land acquired from the Pakenhams...
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Refined Rusticity
The idiosyncratic entrance to Bracklyn, County Westmeath, described by Alistair Rowan and Christine Casey as a ‘fantastic neo-mannerist composition of rocks and arches.’ It might also be judged an...
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Feeling Bookish
Evidence that if books do furnish a room, the appropriate effects also help. Two views of the library at Tullynally, County Westmeath. In the first, an oak side table in the gothic manner on which to...
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Seasonal Cheer
On the northern side of the chancel arch in the ruins of St Fechin’s Church, County Westmeath can be found a carving of a seated monk, hands resting on his knees as he grins contentedly at the world....
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Fore and After
The Irish saint Féichín is believed to have been born around 585 in County Sligo, descended from a line of chieftains. However he chose a more ascetic existence than his forebears and having studied...
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