Re: Re: Beautiful
Boyler- for Art Nouveau, start with Sean Rothery’s ‘Ireland and the new architecture’ book. What little we had is mostly gone or changed beyond recognition.
For info on the Parliament House, that McParland book ‘Public architecture in Ireland 1680-1760’ is the best place to start. It has illustrations, and collects and summarises the various articles Dr McParland has written in different journals/books.
Michael- Your point is a good one about Castletown Cox- it does have Baroque (well, Irish Baroque) elements. As I pointed out above, many buildings were a hybrid of Palladian, Baroque, classical, etc. I think it’s one of the best thing we have going for our historic architecture- the fact that there was little adherence to any major style- a la carte classicism? Don’t know if this was due to many of the designers being ‘gentleman architects’.
And Curraghmore. Aah Curraghmore. I’ve often thought it would make a great town. The picture above doesn’t show the 300 ft long courtyard at the other side. On plan, the footprint looks like a tuning fork. Such a fascinating house- contains a tower house in its core (hence the unusual massing), was comprehensively reworked in the eighteenth century (hand of John Roberts? [Waterford’s Georgian master]). It even has a stag on the parapet, reminiscent of the Stupinigi Lodge in Turin (about which I know little). You’ve hit the nail on the head- they don’t come more Baroque than Curraghmore.
As far as I know it’s still lived in- certainly was in the late 1990s. And I recall seeing an episode of Nationwide, maybe a year ago, in which two people interviewed seemed to be living in part of one of the stable ranges- telltale signs were lunette windows, pleached trees in the courtyard and rugged window dressings.
The image above comes from last year’s NIAH Waterford County survey. I worked on the precursor to that survey and recommended that the building should be of International signoficance. Don’t know whether the re-survey felt the same, but I still think it’s the case. A real gem.
