Gerard Dockery says:
The striking remains of Bellegrove, County Laois, which has remained a ruin ever since being accidentally gutted by fire in 1887. The core of the house dates from the early 19th century: in 1814, when owned by Thomas Trench, Dean of Kildare, it was described as ‘newly built in a superior style.’ However, the Italianate villa seen today was created much later, in the early 1870s, its architect thought to be William Caldbeck, although other names (among them James Franklin Fuller and Sir Thomas Newenham Deane) have also bee suggested. By this time Bellegrove was occupied by John George Adair, his mother having been one of the dean’s daughters. Much given to buying up estates and then either raising the rents or ejecting the tenants, Adair was one of the most reviled landlords of the period; when collecting rents in Laois, he had to be given a police escort. Eleswhere in the country, in County Donegal he acquired 28,000 acres and there in the late 1860s built the Scottish Baronial-style Glenveagh Castle on land that had been cleared. By this time, Adair had married a rich American widow, Cornelia Wadsworth Ritchie, and together they profitably invested in a large Texan ranch (the JA Ranch, its initial’s being those of Adair) which grew to over 700,000 acres, thereby further increasing his wealth. Two years after his (unlamented) death in 1885 Bellegrove was, as mentioned, destroyed by fire but not restored by his widow. What remains today is only part of a formerly larger building, since a substantial winter garden (to the right of the house in the photograph below) designed by Sir Thomas Deane & Son in 1865 has since been taken down; some of the columns in its grand arcade – inspired by the cloister of San Giovanni in Laterano in Rome – were rescued and can be seen elsewhere in the county.
The Irish Aesthete
Gerard Dockery says:
Now just a shell, Quartertown House was originally built in the last quarter of the 18th century, presumably by the Crokers. As mentioned, in 1870 Robert Webb embarked on a major overhaul of the building, choosing as his architect a fellow Corkman, Richard Rolt Brash whose long list of projects – whether a block of villas in Cork City’s Sunday’s Well, a town hall in Bandon, a Roman Catholic church in Buttevant or a flax spinning mill in Douglas – demonstrates a preparedness to provide whatever the client wanted. In Webb’s case, an Italianate villa was required, and duly delivered. The old house, which can be seen below (being to the left) was altogether more modest and smaller, of just five bays and stands behind what can now be seen. Of two storeys over basement, Quartertown House has a rendered, east-facing facade of seven bays with channelled rustication on the ground floor where the round-headed windows are set within square-headed recesses while those on the floor above are square-headed, the whole beneath a heavy modillion cornice. The entrance at the centre (there is a pedimented doorcase buried within the rampant foliage) is marked by an Ionic portico, with a tripartite window above; the south elevation has a canted bay on the basement and ground floor. At some date in the last century, the house was acquired by a Catholic religious order which remained in occupation until the 1970s. However, it then seems to have been abandoned and left to fall into the present sad condition, the roof caved in, the interiors destroyed. Just a hollow shell, there is little to show of the Webb wealth that once paid for the building’s creation.
The Irish Aesthete
Gerard Dockery says:
Rathcoffey Castle was a small castle or tower house for a few hundred years until a three-storey classical house was wrapped around the old structure which was retained. Internally the old castle consisted of one room divided in two by a freestanding double-sided fireplace. New windows were cut into the external walls to reflect the current taste in houses with sash windows. Five compartments were wrapped around two sides of the castle. The main staircase off the entrance hall was placed centrally on the new plan. To the left of the hall was an elegantly proportioned room with the servants' staircase off it. Behind the stairs was another service room. The main entrance hall was purely single storey leaving the building above to be somewhat C-shaped. As per castles or tower houses throughout Ireland, the lower floor was vaulted so as to support a solid floor at the first-floor level.
Wikipedia
Gerard Dockery says:
Eyrecourt Castle (or Eyre Court) was an Irish 17th century country house in Galway which became a ruin in the 20th century. The house, the surrounding estate, and the nearby small town of Eyrecourt all took their name from Colonel the Right Hon. John Eyre, an Englishman who was granted a large parcel of land in recognition of his part in the military campaign in Galway during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. There was an earlier fortified house or castle on the same land.
There is also a block of private apartments called Eyre Court located in the London neighbourhood of St. John's Wood.
Eyrecourt Castle was "an early example [of] a classical country house ". A 7-bay two-storey house "built on a symmetrical pattern with a central staircase and hall taking up nearly a third of the overall space, it was an impressive, modern residence for the new landowner". A visitor in 1731, Mary Granville, commented on a "great many fine woods and improvements that looked very English" in the parkland around the house. Richard Cumberland, a few decades later, called it "a spacious mansion, not in the best repair" with "a vast extent of soil, not very productive". The grounds are now called a demesne, a standard expression in Ireland for an estate; the demesne gates were bought and restored by the National Heritage Council in the 1990s.
The most striking features of the house were its "ambitious wood-carvings, massive doorcases and a famous baroque staircase", one of the first grand staircases in Ireland, with "acanthus leaves issuing from grotesque masks and rolling down the banisters" and "by far the most exuberant piece of wood carving surviving from the 17th century". Dutch craftsmen are believed to have worked there, with the possible involvement of the Dublin-based French-born James Tabary. One chimneypiece followed a design of Serlio's.
The house had a motto over the door to the main hall saying, "Welcome to the house of liberty", and its own small chapel, built in 1677. Local tradition says the grounds were used as an overnight camp by Ginkell's Williamite army after the Battle of Aughrim in 1691.
In 1662 Colonel John Eyre was granted the 800 acres (320 ha) of Eyrecourt land, with the power to empark it, as reward for his role in Cromwell's Irish campaign. He built the house in the 1660s or early 1670s. Eyre was subsequently an MP for County Galway and High Sheriff of County Galway for 1681. On his death in 1685 the property passed to his eldest son John (known as Proud Eyre). From him it passed in turn to John's son George (High Sheriff in 1706 but who died young in 1710), then to George's brother, John (High Sheriff in 1724) and then to a third brother, the Revd. Giles, Dean of Killaloe and Clonfert. From Giles it passed to Giles' son John, who was made Baron Eyre. Lord Eyre died childless in 1781 and the peerage became extinct.
The house, however, was inherited by his nephew Lieutenant-Colonel Giles Eyre (High Sheriff in 1798), who spent a lot of money on unsuccessful electioneering. He left it to his own eldest son, John (1794–1856). John was killed whilst hunting and it passed to his son, yet another John (1820–1890). On the latter's death in 1890 it descended to William Henry Gregory Eyre, an Assistant Land Commissioner.
In 1883 the Eyres were considered insolvent and by the time William Henry Gregory Eyre died in 1925, the estate had diminished and a house fire had destroyed much of the castle. William Randolph Hearst bought the ornately carved staircase of Eyrecourt Castle in 1927 and had it shipped to the United States. Subsequent to the death of Hearst his estate donated the Eyrecourt staircase to the Detroit Institute of Arts.
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