history at a glance
Step back through the centuries in Muckross House
”The French monarch might
possibly be able to erect another Versailles, but could not with all his revenues lay out another Muckross” (An eighteenth centry visitor to Killarney quoted by Travel Writer Charles Smith) If the walls of Muckross House could talk, what a chorus of stories would swirl through the polished corridors. But, in advance of the stories, here is some practical advice. Visits to the house are by guided tour only for conservation reasons: you can’t just turn up, buy your ticket and wander through. For that reason, I would advise visitors to go directly to the reception area in the old stable block to begin with and book your tour. If you have to wait a little, so much the better. This will give you time to view the magificent gardens which, like the parking, are absolutely free. If you have time, there are several nature walks nearby, including the Old Boat House Walk delivering a panoramic view of Torc Mountain and Muckross Lake from a limestone promontory.
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I KILLARNEY MAGAZINE I
1843
Kerry MP Henry Arthur Herbert builds the mansion in Elizabethan style.
1861
They started the industry in the 18th century, mining an estimated £30,000 worth of ore between 1749-1754 alone. A second phase of mining lasted from 1785 to 1818. Muckross House has 25 bedrooms and 62 chimneys and employed 22 indoor staff in its heyday. The pink-hued Portland stone, used to face the house, was shipped from Wales to Kenmare and ferried over the mountain by horse and car.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert visit.
1899
Lord Ardilaun of the Guiness family is the new owner.
Like a lot of aristocratic families, the Herberts survived the ebb and flow of their fortunes by periodically arranging strategic marriages. Despite this, the coffers were steadily emptying from the 1860s onwards. Costly preparations for the visit of Queen Victoria in 1861 are said to have strained the family’s finances considerably.
1911
Californians William and Agnes Bowers Bourn buy the house for £60,000 as a wedding gift for their only child, Maud, and her Clareborn husband, Arthur Vincent.
1932
The Queen’s Bedroom, one of the popular exhibits in the house, features a mahogany bed, window drapes of of pink and gold silk damask and a Louis XV-style dressing table.
Local lore has it that the decorative iron staircase descending on the exterior wall into the sunken garden below the bedroom was installed because the monarch had a phobia about fires. Under the eaves of Muckross House today is located an award-winning research library, accessible by appointment only. While researching my book, ‘Hidden Kerry, The Keys to the Kingdom’, I came across one of the most colourful stories to survive from the Herbert era,
that of Elizabeth Germain who, in 1781, married Henry Arthur Herbert (1756-1821). Just ten years after the society wedding, Elizabeth eloped with a Major Duff, abandoning her children in the process. Captain Baird appears to have been one in a string of dalliances.
Heartbreak and affluence go hand and hand in the saga of the Vincents, the last family to inhabit the house. Heiress Maud Vincent died in 1929 in New York at the age of 47, having contracted pneumonia aboard an ocean liner. Her son, Billy, recalled how she had worked to improve the living conditions of the estate tenants, visiting all the cottages at least once a year. The Bourn Vincent Memorial Park, named in her honour, became the nucleus of Killarney National Park. I seldom walk through the gardens without thinking of her. by
Breda Joy
Photos courtesy of Switzer Studios
Muckross House
Now, for the history. The mansion was built in 1843 by the Herberts, a family of Welsh settlers who were granted Kerry land in 1586 by Queen Elizabeth 1. It was the fourth ‘Muckross House’ to be built by the family who made substantial money from copper mining on the Dinis Peninsula in Muckross.
The house and 11,000 acre estate are presented to the Irish nation to become a National Park.
1964
The house re-opens as a Folk Life Museum. I KILLARNEY MAGAZINE I
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