Castletown House

Castletown House, Celbridge, County Kildare, Ireland's finest Palladian country house, is an imposing building built in 1722 for William Conolly, the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. [ [http://www.irish-architecture.com/buildings_ireland/kildare/celbridge/castletown/introduction.html Dr. Paul Caffrey writing on www.irish-architecture.com] ]

History

The main block was designed by Italian architect by Alessandro Galilei and the wings were added by Edward Lovett Pearce in 1724 and the huge construction was paid with money the Conolly family had acquired through selling land in other parts of Ireland.

Later Conolly was recorded as the wealthiest man in the country, though his family refused to take a title and were proud to be "the richest commoners in Ireland". Conolly came from County Leitrim where his ancestral name was O Conghaile.

The house was inherited by Tom Conolly in 1758 and the interior decoration was finished by his wife Lady Louisa (great-granddaughter of Charles II of England and Louise de Keroualle) during the 1760s and 1770s. Much of the work was carried out to designs of William Chambers.

The Conolly family continued to live in their ancestral house until 1965, when it was sold along with its collections and land, some of which was built on.

Irish Georgian Society

The house was bought in 1967 by Desmond Guinness to save it from vandalism, became the flagship of the Irish Georgian Society, and was eventually handed over to the newly-established Castletown Foundation.

Public care

Later still, Castletown was transferred to the Office of Public Works. Sadly this has not prevented vandalism and destruction - see The Gazebo below .

Current activities

Castletown House has opened its doors through OPW to various academic and artistic organisations. The first Arts organisation to take up residency at Castletown House in 2007 was The Performance Corporation, Ireland's leading site-specific theatre company. The company operates an office from the premises as well as running rehearsals for their productions and hosting Ireland's only paid, international cross-artform residency programme The SPACE Programme. http://www.ThePerformanceCorporation.com

Interiors

On the piano nobile there are a series of ever grander reception rooms typical of the 1720s. The house was entered by ascending a staircase outside before coming into a large Entrance Hall which was graced with Stucco gilding and pictures of the family. To the left is the Dining Room which was made out of two smaller rooms. To the right of the hall was the huge staircase itself. This was made of Portland Stone and is cantilevered.

Straight on is the Green Drawing Room and was also known as the Saloon because of its position in the house. This was the room that the family used to receive their guests in before leaving and (staying on the left hand side of the house) entering the Red Drawing Room.

Another fascinating room, although odd by today's standards, is the Print Room which was decorated by Lady Louisa and friends, following the fashion of the 1760s, with cut-outs of favourite images. This room is on the right side and is thought to be the only surviving example of this in Ireland from this period.

Further on is the State Bedroom, which was never used by royalty as such, but by the various viceroys based in Dublin. In it are chairs which were from Venice.

Another feature of Castletown is the Long Gallery, an convert|80|ft|m|sing=on long room decorated in the Pompeian manner by O'Reilly in blue and gold.

The Gazebo

The Gazebo at Castletown was partly demolished on Saturday 26th of May 2007 (in an exercise seen as architectural vandalism by many) by persons as yet unknown. Local people, who were shocked and angered, have signed a petition to try and save the Gazebo.

See also

* The Wonderful Barn
* Conolly's Folly

Citations

External links

* [http://www.irish-architecture.com/buildings_ireland/kildare/celbridge/castletown/index.html Castletown House on irish-architecture.com]
* [http://www.rte.ie/radio1/liveline/gazebo.html Gazebo photos]