- Killarney House
The site of Killarney House was chosen by
Queen Victoria on her visit to Ireland in 1861. This house was the replacement forKenmare House (1726) as the seat of theEarl of Kenmare .It was the fourth Earl that decided to build a new mansion on a hillside with spectacular views of
Lough Leane in 1872. The old house was demolished and a Elizabethan-Revival manor house on a more elevated site. The cost was well over £100,000. This house was supposed to have been instigated by Lady Kenmare (Gertrude Thynne, granddaughter ofThomas Thynne, 2nd Marquess of Bath ) and inspired by Lord Bath's genuinely Elizabethan seat,Longleat , Wiltshire (which is not red-brick); but it was not unusual for the descendants of Elizabethan or Jacobean settlers in Ireland to assert their comparative antiquity in this period by buildingJacobethan houses. The architect wasGeorge Devey but, according to Jeremy Williams, '... that feeling of being built up over the centuries that distinguished Devey's work was entirely lacking, partly due to the job being supervised byW.H. Lynn [the Belfast architect] at his most relentless ... The western-most gate lodge, gabled and galleried, [which survives, is] Devey at his most delightful.' The house, which in addition to its other defects apparently did not sit happily in the landscape as it had many gables and manyoriels . The interior was pannelled and hung with spanish leather. It was considered one of the finest mansions in Ireland. Sadly, it was burnt out twice - once in 1879, just after its completion, and again, and finally, in November 1913 and never re-built; instead the stable block of the olderKenmare House was converted for family use.Killarney House and the Browne estate in kerry were donated by Mrs. Grosvenor (niece of the seventh Earl) to form
Killarney National Park .
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