The Conservation of Irish Houses 1984-2004

Irish Arts Review

The Conservation of Irish Houses 1984-2004Author(s): Judith HillSource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 21, No. 3 (Autumn, 2004), pp. 78-81Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25503080 .

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HERITAGE

THE CONSERVATION OF IRISH HOUSES 1984-2004

The Conservation of

Irish Houses 1984-2004 The last two decades have witnessed a revival in the fortunes of many Irish historic houses and gardens with a

range of resources available today that were previously unknown, yet vigilance is still required, writes JUDITH HILL

1 Belvdere House:

The garden front of

Belvedere

2 Newman House,

Apollo Room photo:

Jacqueline O'Brien

3 Ballywalter Park:

The Grand Staircase

photo: Andrew Holt

e all have a stake in the

'Big House' now. Since

the nadir of the burnings in the early 1920s, and

with the prolonged indifference of the 1930s,

1940s and 1950s it was a not inconsiderable

journey, emotionally and intellectually, to the

turning point in the 1980s. Then, persuaded - at a time of profound cultural change

- by vol

untary bodies such as the Irish Georgian

Society (founded in 1958), the habit of regard

ing the products of Ascendancy culture as un

Irish began to loosen its grip, and the consensus that the architects

and craftsmen of the Great House building period of the 18th and

19th centuries had contributed immeasurably to a collective cul

ture began to take hold. The government, notably, has lagged

behind. It is only five years since the principles of the Granada

Convention (1985) to recognise the irreplaceable richness and

diversity of Europe's architectural heritage and to safeguard it for

future generations were finally enshrined in Irish legislation. There

had been previous legislation to protect buildings, but the National

Monuments Acts of 1930-1994 had been biased towards pre-1700 structures. The Planning Acts of 1999 and 2000

made no distinctions. With the landmark act of 2000

ft _. there is a statutory obligation on local authorities to

^H^^fll protect architecturally significant structures, and

J^^^^^H there is provision for public money for conservation.

^^^|^H The tenants' 'Big House' with its complex connota

^^^^^^1 tions has been replaced by the historic house, a col

^^^^^^1 lective responsibility and a shared delight.

^^^^^^1 The safeguarding of the built heritage is an oner

ous burden, financially and conceptually. There are

never sufficient resources to fully safeguard the architectural inher

itance, and, what is meant by that innocuous-sounding word, safe

guard? It covers a vast spectrum of work loosely covered by the

words conservation and restoration. This stretches from routine

maintenance to reinvigorating adaptive re-use. In between is con

servation - threatened with ruin or severe deterioration a building

W

I needs to be made watertight and structurally

sound - and restoration - the replacing of miss

ing parts to present the building as it was, orig

inally, or, with its accretions, at a later period.

It is not always clear what work should be

done. Although there is a growing consensus

about good conservation practice which

emphasises minimal intervention, including

the retention of all historically significant addi

tions, this is not always compatible with con

temporary needs. And where, apart from the

careful curating, is the modern contribution

which future generations will value? It is contentious terrain.

With resources unable to cover needs, historic architecture as

a whole is in a permanent state of low level crisis. However, the

crisis for historic houses has been, and arguably still is, acute.

Widespread destruction in the early 20th century was followed

by abandonment and, for those buildings still occupied, the

increasing inability of owners with severely reduced estates to pay

for maintenance and repair. Many estates were sold to institutions

whose conversions drastically altered their interiors. Others

traded furniture and pictures for watertight roofs. Fiscal incen

tives for conservation (first announced in the 1978 budget) were

predicated on a sizeable income, and grants only became an

option with the establishment of the non-statutary National

Heritage Council in 1988. We are reconciled (many prefer) to

visit ruined churches and monastic sites, but the shell of a

Georgian house is not enough. The house needs animating, its

immediate garden setting and, ideally, its wider demesne context

apparent, its interior decorated and furnished. Only then is it felt

that justice can be done to the lives of those who lived in the

houses and on the estates, and to the artistic vision of the design

ers and craftsmen. This requires enormous financial input and

passion from the custodians of the buildings.

The first historic houses to be saved were those bought and

restored by the Irish Georgian Society in the 1970s and 1980s.

The most high profile case was Castletown, Co Kildare. Still in

its magnificent setting, it stood empty and vulnerable for two

78 I

IRISH ARTS REVIEW AUTUMN 2004



c.7

Nv



! HERITAGE

THE CONSERVATION OF IRISH HOUSES 1984-2004

4 Lyons House: The

Family Room

5 Casino at Marino

(Courtesy of the

Department of the

Environment,

Heritage and Local

Government)

6 Ballynatray House: The Music

Room with view into

hall, trompe l'oeil by Michael Dillon

photo: Denis Bergin

years until it was bought by Desmond Guinness in 1967. The

Society spent seventeen years restoring it. Having demonstrated

that buildings could be effectively rescued, the Irish Georgian

Society has, since the late 1980s, enabled others to restore build

ings by providing financial support and advice; the Swiss Cottage at Cahir, the Richard Castle gem Ledwithstown, Co Longford and a variety of vernacular buildings are all recent beneficiaries.

It is in the last twenty years that the fortunes of historic houses

have finally turned. It is no coincidence that this is of the period of

Irish Arts Review, and a variety of significant projects have appeared

in the journal over the years. One of the first was the Casino at

Marino (Fig 5). An exception in nearly every way - a post-1700

structure taken into State care in 1930, the work of an architect

of European reputation, William Chambers - this exquisite neo

classical garden house was in a state of protracted collapse. After

securing it against ruin a ten-year restoration programme was

inaugurated in 1974. Because it was a building whose original

conception was still so glowingly manifest in the perfect form

and magnificent detailing of its architecture there was no question

but that Lord Charlemont's Casino should be re-created, and, as the

building was relatively well documented and fragments of wall paper

and elements of plasterwork and marquetry floor survived, it was

possible to replace missing parts with the minimum of conjecture.

The 1994 issue of the Review carried a very insightful article

into the restoration of Newman House on St Stephen's Green by

its then curator, Christine Casey. Here were two beautifully

crafted 18th-century buildings that had been radically altered by

University College Dublin. Eschewing both extremes of conser

vation practice (minimal intervention and full period restoration)

as a philosophy for the restoration, while working closely with the

fabric as it was uncovered, the team varied their approach in dif

ferent parts of the building. Thus the Apollo Room of No. 85

was restored to its original form in recognition of the exceptional

beauty of the Lanfranchini plasterwork (Fig 2), while the recep tion room in No. 86, first used as the committee room by John

Henry Newman and his associates in 1851 when they set up the

Catholic University, was restored to its Victorian character.

Belvedere House, a 1740 hunting lodge set in mature woods

overlooking Lough Ennell had, in places, been significantly

altered in the 19th century. But in 1982 Westmeath County Council decided to restore it to its mid-18th-century splendour as

a tourist attraction. Repairing the crumbling Rococo ceilings by

Barthelemij Cramillion was not controversial. However, reinstat

ing two Diocletian windows where the Victorian replacements

were in good order, although aesthetically desirable, was to dis

count the fact that buildings are often the beneficiaries of chang

ing ideas, for better or worse (Fig 1).

One of the delights of Belvedere is the garden, whose restora

tion began in 1998. The Victorians are now acknowledged as

master gardeners, and it was in the 19th century that the walled

garden and the terraces that connect the lodge to the lough were

created. There has been a growing interest in the patient art of

garden restoration in recent years, made possible under the Great

Gardens of Ireland Restoration Programme, inaugurated in 1994

by the Department of Tourism and Trade. A long term project

has been the restoration of the gardens at Woodstock, Co.

Kilkenny. Here, clearance and research revealed an intriguingly

ambitious conception, and careful work has reinstated, among

other things, the long, formal terraced flower garden, the unique

'Silver Fir Avenue' and the Monkey Puzzle Walk. One of the next

steps is to clear the demesne of commercial conifers to restore the

open parkland setting for the gardens.

Examples of houses conserved and recreated by the descen

dants of their original owners have also been covered by the

Review, although not many. This is not necessarily indicative of the

present pattern of ownership. In Terence Dooley's recent survey

of fifty of some of the largest houses, A Future for Irish Historic

Houses!, half were owned by descendants of the builders. In his

2003 article on Lissadell - a house distinguished by its austere

Greek revival architecture and its associations with Constance

8 0 I

IRISH ARTS REVIEW AUTUMN 2004



Markievicz, Eva Gore-Booth and W B Yeats - the then owner,

Josslyn Gore-Booth, articulated the mixed reasons -'filial duty, sen

timental attachment' and an imperative emanating from the dis

tinction of the house, its contents and setting -

that led him to take

on his inheritance in the 1950s. It was a long drawn-out project of

piecemeal work, financed in part by selling some of the contents,

but also availing of modest National Heritage Council grants. It

was a very different story for Lord Dunleath at Ballywalter Park,

Co Down in Northern Ireland. He has been conserving this

Italianate palazzo designed by Sir Charles Lanyon in c. 1846 since

1980 with a series of generous grants from the Environment and

I Heritage Service. The result is that the splendour of the original

cast iron, mahogany and marble of the staircase (Fig 3) and the

London club standard comfort of the furnishings and decoration

are still being enjoyed, while the facade has been completely replas

tered and the roof secured for the next two hundred years.

Last year Gore-Booth finally relinquished his self-imposed

responsibility and sold Lissadell. This prompted a public debate

discussed two. At Lyons House, Co Kildare the owner Dr Tony

Ryan received a Europa Nostra Heritage Award for his sumptu

ous restoration of this late 18th-century mansion (Fig 4). Amid

the Gabrielli murals and the gilt of period furnishings are some

more modern accents - including a new 18th-century style ceiling

- and outside an orangery and swimming pool have joined the

Palladian ensemble of buildings. Once again this house has a cus

todian who is in a position to add to its glories, thereby acting as

a patron to contemporary designers and craftsmen as well as mak

ing it a more comfortable proposition for the 21st century.

This is true too of Ballynatray House in Co Waterford. Here

the owners have been more audacious. They have moved the ball

and socket frieze from the former billiard room to a new room,

brought the kitchen from the basement, displayed modern art

and, with an expanse of pale limestone on the floor of the hall

and beyond have created a sequence of spaces whose light and

expanse have a contemporary overtone (Fig 6). While this may

have gone too far for some conservationists two rules have been

I There have been significant restorations and, more importantly, we now have the necessary resources; money, expertise, interest and enthusiasm

mm.

about whether the State should be buying such properties for its

citizens. A strong case was made for the idea, first mooted in

1985, of establishing a national trust type organisation to fulfil

this role. We need go no further than Northern Ireland to see

what the National Trust can achieve. One of their most striking

properties is Castle Coole in Fermanagh, an outstandingly well

crafted neo-classical building designed by James Wyatt and fur

nished in the regency period, which was restored with both these

facts in mind in the 1980s.

Lissadell was eventually sold to a private buyer who has

expressed a commitment to restore the building and has the

money to do it. The channelling of such resources into historic

houses is a relatively new phenomenon in the Republic. Dooley

surveyed six such houses, and the quarterly Irish Arts Review has

observed; much of the work is reversible and all is documented

in the planning department of Water ford County Council.

A recent trend among owners is to make houses the focus of

a commercial enterprise. Glin, Co Limerick and Clonalis, Co

Roscommon, the latter derelict for a time, have both secured their

futures by offering guest accommodation. At Strokestown Park

the new owner restored the house and gardens as a tourist attrac

tion, breaking new ground by opening a famine museum in the

outbuildings to draw attention to lives of the tenants during that

terrible period.

We are at the beginning of a great revival for the Irish historic

house. There have been significant restorations and, more impor

tantly, we now have the necessary resources; money, expertise, inter

est and enthusiasm. But loss and decay is not a thing of the past.

The 2000 Planning Act has been inadequately implemented, with

the level of funding and the number of conservation officers below

a necessary minimum. This means that buildings are receiving far

less attention than was hoped, and worse, there are numerous appli

cations for the de-listing of buildings. Once outside the net of statu

tory protection their survival is immediately less certain. Even those

buildings that are protected and have undergone major conservation

are not out of danger. Terence Dooley concluded in his report that

the majority of the houses he surveyed faced 'difficulties which

threaten their existence in the future'. In 1988 the Irish

Architectural Archive and the Georgian Society published Vanishing

Country Houses of Ireland. It is interesting to go through it and see

how many of the 547 houses have been brought back to life. But far

more are still slowly decaying or have since disappeared.

JUDITH HILL is a writer and architect.

Further Reading The Knight of Glin, David J Griffin, Nicholas K

Robinson, Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland, The

Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian

Society, 1988.

Rachel Moss, 'Architecture', in Neil Buttimer, Colin

Rynne and Helen Guerin (eds), The Heritage of

Ireland, The Collins Press, Cork, 2000.

Grellan Rourke, Conservation and Restoration: The

Built Environment' Buttimer, Rynne and Guerin (eds),

The Heritage of Ireland, 2000.

Terence Dooley, A Future for Irish Historic Houses? A

Study of Fifty Houses, report sponsored by Irish

Georgian Society and Department of the Environment,

Heritage and Local Government, 2003.

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The Conservation of Irish Houses 1984-2004