- Ardbraccan House
Ardbraccan House (known sometimes historically as Ardbraccan Palace) is a large
Palladian country house inCounty Meath in theRepublic of Ireland . The historic house served from the 1770s to 1885 as the residence of theChurch of Ireland Lord Bishop of Meath.Construction
Ardbraccan itself had been the location of the residence of a bishop for over one thousand years, first of the "Bishop of Ardbraccan" and later following the merger of many small dioceses into theDiocese of Meath as the residence of the Bishop of Meath. By the Middle Ages a large Tudor house, containing its own church, known as "St. Mary's", stood on the site. However in 1734 Bishop Arthur Price (1678-1752) decided to replace the decaying mansion with a new Georgian residence. Initially the two wings of the house were built, before the main four-bay two-storey block of the house was completed in the 1770s by Bishop Maxwell. It was partly designed by the acclaimed 18th-century German architectRichard Castle ("also known asRichard Cassels )" was the architect of many notable Irish buildings includingLeinster House inDublin .Controversy/legend
Legend suggested that gravestones from a neighbouring
Roman Catholic cemetery at Markiestown, some miles away, were removed and used as the steps into the servants' quarters in the residence. Whether that was anurban myth based on the intense rivalry between the state-established Church of Ireland and the local predominantly Roman Catholic population inBohermeen (who were subject to the discriminatoryPenal Laws and forced to paytithe s to the Church of Ireland) or had some basis in fact, is unclear. It is possible that the house utilised stone from the derelict pre-Reformation church at the cemetery, though it was notable that from the mid to late eighteenth century the cemetery was denuded of "all" gravestones.ale
The new bishop's palace became famous for the quality of its architecture. Funded by government grants and locally paid tithes, the Church of Ireland bishop held court from the mansion, which was the centre of a large agricultural
demesne . However the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1871, following the previous scrapping of Roman Catholic-paid tithes, fatally weakened the economic survival of the bishop's estate, which was left totally reliant on the small local Church of Ireland community, and in 1885 the bishop sold the estate and house, moving to a smaller mansion nearby (which Church of Ireland continued to live until 1958 and which was then sold to a Roman Catholicreligious order , theHoly Ghost Fathers ). Ardbraccan House was bought by Hugh Law,the son of theLord Chancellor of Ireland and remained in the ownership of his descendants until sold by Colonel Owen Foster in 1985 toTara Mines who used it as a guest residence for visiting businessmen.Today
In the late 1990s the house once again changed hands. The new owners invested large sums to completely restore the mansion. In 2002 the restoration of Ardbraccan House won the
An Taisce "Best Restoration of a Private Building" award. It is now open to the public.In the early 2000s the
County Meath planning authority approved plans to build a major new motorway linkingClonee andKells through part of the house's historic demesne. TheIrish Georgian Society and environmentalists criticised the proposal. The motorway would also pass through the pristine parkland of a religiousseminary called "Dalgan Park" and close by the historic Hill of Tara, seat of the ancient "Árd Rí na hÉireann" (High King of Ireland). The motorway is currently (2008) being built.ee also
*
Allenstown House
*Áras an Uachtaráin
*Ardbraccan
*Bohermeen
*Dublin Castle
*Durhamstown Castle
*Farmleigh
*Gibbstown House
*Headfort House
*Irish Houses of Parliament (Bank of Ireland, College Green)
*Leinster House
*List of notable Irish buildings
*Powerscourt House
*Powerscourt Townhouse Centre
*Slane Castle External links
* [http://www.askaboutireland.com/ntn/meath/Larkins_Map.htm Larkins Map of 1812]
* [http://archives.tcm.ie/businesspost/2001/10/14/story307375.asp Sunday Business Post article on Meath's heritage]
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.