Irish Follies and Whimsical Architecture

IRISH FOLLIES and

WHI M S I CA L A RCHI TE CTU R E

Dedicated with love to Cherill, my soulmate for 50 years

IRISH FOLLIES and

WHI M S I CA L A RCHI TE CTU R E George Munday

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

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7

CONNACHT

51

ULSTER

73

LEINSTER

107

DUBLIN

157

Final words

185

Maps

186

Index of follies

189

PREFACE

A

ccording to Mariga and Desmond Guinness, founders of the Irish Georgian Society, the island of Ireland has more follies to the acre than anywhere else in the world. The name of this whimsical style of architecture has nothing to do with foolishness, originally being derived from the French word ‘folie’, which meant ‘eye-catcher’.

Follies were created for many reasons, such as adding a certain style to demesne gardens, to commemorate the great and good, to satisfy emotions like pride, envy or self-indulgence. And, on occasion, to provide financial relief and employment during times of hardship, particularly during the famines of 1740–41 and 1845–49.

The historian Sir Kenneth Clark described them as ‘monuments to a mood’, a term that can also encompass structures built for a specific use but which are now redundant. While they aren’t follies, they have the necessary criteria of decorative qualities, no practical use (or a complete change of use) and the additional benefit of enhancing the landscape.

Despite their value to Ireland’s culture, many follies and monuments to mood are at risk or have already been destroyed.

My hope is that Irish Follies and Whimsical Architecture will heighten interest in the preservation of these eccentric structures, because once they are gone, they’re gone, the loss of yet more unique creations and elements of Ireland’s heritage.

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IRISH FOLLIES AND WHIMSICAL ARCHITECTURE

Copper mine, Allihies.

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PREFACE

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CORK Copper mine, Allihies Overlooked by mountains, the moody and magnificent engine house (on the previous pages), is a quintessential ‘monument to a mood’. Beautifully preserved for its history, it is an atmospheric enhancement to the landscape.

It was in 1813 that commercial copper mining began above the village of Allihies on the Beara Peninsula in County Cork. One of a number of engine houses for the mine, the ‘Man Engine’ house, erected in 1862, used steam

power to transport miners to and from the dark depths of the mine galleries, some 400 metres (a quarter of a mile) below the surface.

By the late 1800s, a worldwide downturn in the price of copper saw profits fall severely. When the mine eventually closed, many of the miners from Allihies (and Bunmahon, see page 38) emigrated to Montana in the USA to work in what would become known as ‘the richest hill on earth’.

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Baltimore Beacon, Baltimore Known as ‘the Pillar of Salt’ or ‘Lot’s Wife’, the conical white navigation Baltimore Beacon was built by the Crowley Brothers in 1848 to replace an older, primitive marker.

The beacon stands above the narrow entrance from Roaringwater Bay to Baltimore harbour in County Cork, a port with the dubious distinction of being the location of the largest attack by Barbary pirates in either Ireland or Great Britain. It took place in 1631 and resulted in the kidnapping of many villagers, both English settlers and local Irish people,

who were put in irons and taken to a life of slavery in North Africa. Some became galley slaves, rowing for decades without ever setting foot on shore; others, presumably the women, were incarcerated in harems, while the rest became labourers.

In the following years, the remaining villagers moved to Skibbereen, leaving Baltimore virtually deserted for generations.

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Signal tower and lighthouse, Cape Clear The possibility of French invasion during the eighteenth century drove the construction of many defensive stone structures around the Irish coast. This Napoleonic signal tower, erected in the 1790s on Cape Clear Island, was one of a chain of seventeen towers built to convey signals from Castletownbere to Cork city.

The lighthouse was added in 1818, but proved to be ineffective due to frequent mist. It was replaced in 1899 by the famous Fastnet Rock lighthouse, erected on a rocky outcrop 6 kilometres (4 miles) south of Cape Clear, leaving two captivating ruins.

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Blackrock Castle The original Blackrock Castle on the banks of the River Lee was built in the sixteenth century to repel invaders entering Cork harbour, following an appeal to Queen Elizabeth I. In later years, when the threat had passed, the castle was used by Cork Corporation for ‘convivial gatherings’ and it was following one such banquet that the castle was

destroyed by fire in 1827. Rebuilt in the neo-Gothic style, Blackrock Castle is now an interactive centre for astronomy.

It houses a hub for scientific research, a planetarium and an interactive centre for schoolchildren who can use the radio telescope to beam messages to the stars. ‘Is there anybody out there?’

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The 100 Steps, Bantry House Richard White, 1st Earl of Bantry, developed the extensive Georgian mansion in County Cork, whilst his son, the second earl, also called Richard, inspired by his European Grand Tour, created a magnificent Italianate garden. Copies of classical statues and urns were dotted throughout the grounds and the imaginatively designed seven terraces were wrought from the hill behind the house. They were bisected by the ‘Hundred Steps’, leading to a viewing point with panoramic views of Bantry Bay and the Beara Peninsula.

(Below) Temple, Fota House Fota House is the former home of the Smith-Barry family, Earls of Barrymore, who were granted land in County Cork by Strongbow in 1170, shortly after the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland. It was in the nineteenth century that architects Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison remodelled the small hunting lodge into a Regency mansion and designed the accompanying walled garden and temple.

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Ballymaloe House, Shanagarry Two follies sit in a wild-flower meadow, part of Ballymaloe Cookery School in Shanagarry, County Cork. In the foreground, there’s a unique wrought-iron gazebo, called the Metal House, and behind it, the lovely Shell House. The deceptively simple little building with a slate roof and Gothic windows was designed by Darina and Tim Allen and gives no hint of the delights to be found inside.

The enchanting interior was created by shell artist Blott Kerr-Wilson, who took her inspiration from Spain’s Alhambra in Granada. She sketched patterns onto the blank walls, then cemented shells into the designs, encrusting both

walls and ceiling with a kaleidoscope of colour. A pool of clear bubbling water was finally created in the centre of the pebble-studded floor.

Darina had been collecting shells for years with a vague idea of building a folly. Blott brought some shells with her, while more were given as gifts when people heard about the plan. It took three months to perfect the unique project and the date of its completion, 1995, is displayed in shells above the doors leading out to the double herbaceous border of the Old Pleasure Garden.

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Opposite: Gazebo and Shell House.

Right: Shell House interior.

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Above: Clock tower.

Opposite: Greek temple.

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Garinish Island When Belfast-born John Annan Bryce approached the British War Office to purchase Garinish Island in 1910, he must have been a perceptive visionary. The 37-acre island in Bantry Bay, just off Glengarriff, was little more than an inhospitable, barren rock with a Martello tower left over from the Napoleonic Wars.

But thanks to the Gulf Stream, the island enjoys a temperate climate with endless potential, so Bryce and his wife Violet, along with the English landscape architect Harold Peto, formed a design partnership to create a subtropical garden.

The first stage saw a hundred workmen blasting rocks and shipping soil from the Cork mainland. When, sometime later, gales damaged earlier planting, the problem was solved by

Scottish gardener Murdo MacKenzie, by planting a shelter belt of Scots and Monterey pine around the outer perimeter of the island.

With protection from Atlantic storms in place, Bryce and Peto went on to build a number of fascinating follies, such as the Romanesque clock tower in the walled garden and the roofless classical Greek temple at one end of Happy Valley. Their masterpiece was the Italianate Garden with a casita and pavilion (following pages) facing each other across a rectangular lily pond furnished with a small sculpture of Mercury, appropriately the god of eloquence, travellers and luck.

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Above: The casita on Garinish Island.

Opposite: The pavilion.

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