Leap Castle, Co. Offaly was built by the O'Bannon chieftains, in the 14th or 15th century.  It is perfectly poised at the intersection of Irish literary and architectural Gothic.  It is a classic example (like Birr Castle) of a small medieval structure enclosed by a Gothic Revival shell, it was inhabited by Gothic novelist Mildred Darby, and it is the source of some of the most bizarre tales of Gothic hauntings in Ireland.      Image - Leap Castle as it is today   Image - the ruined part of Leap Castle     Images - various interior views of

Even those who could not afford a fully Gothic castle would add ad hoc Gothic embellishments – battlements, Gothic stables, crenellated farmyards, even, in one superb case of Gothic envy a gateway so splendid and expensive, that there was no money left for the main house.   Image - Gates at Ballysaggartmore    This folly par excellence can be found today in Ballysaggartmore, where Arthur Keily’s wife, consumed by envy of her brother-in-law’s sham-Gothic castle Strancally, was driven to embark on this unfortunate building programme.  The Keilys live

Birr Castle, Co. Offaly is an example of a further intersection of architecture and literature.  It appears thinly disguised as ‘Kinalty Castle’ in Henry Green’s Loving (1945), and is also interesting as an example of the typical Gothic Revival concept of a castle.  Looking at Birr Castle, we can ‘read’ its appearance.  It appears to be defensive in purpose, with thick walls, the forbidding gateway, the arrow-slits…     Yet when we look closer, the image begins to dissipate.  The castle itself is a sham, an elaborate Gothi

Lismore Castle is a fine example of Irish Gothic.  Although, like many examples of Gothic revivial architecture in Ireland, it is a remodeled version of a medieval castle, Lismore is very close to the English Gothic architectural style.  Lismore came into the possesion of the 4th Duke of Devonshire in 1748, through marriage, and it was his grandson , the ‘Bachelor Duke’, 6th Duke of Devonshire who carried out substantial Gothic renovations from 1812 to 1858/  He employed a team of Gothic experts to remodel both interior and exterior including Joseph Paxton, later arc

However, despite the abundant examples of original Gothic ruins in Ireland, in the 18th century there appears a curious architectural reluctance to make a full commitment to the style.  Moore Abbey, which dates from the early 17th century in County Kildare, for example, follows a classical structure with the sole addition of Gothic windows.   Image - Moore Abbey     From this period we also find one of the first and oddest examples of the Gothic style in Ireland.  This is Castleward House in Co. Down, Northern Ireland.  Ostensibly, on approach, it lacks any

The story of the Great House literally arises from ruins of the medieval period.   These ruins may be viewed as post-structural with the physical gaps equating to gaps in text.  The Gothic Revival aims to fill in these gaps with literary and architectural constructs based on re-imaginings and contemporary responses   While the architectural form of the Gothic arises chiefly from the Anglo-Irish expression of English fashions and the desire to create a family seat of mock-historic lineage, the literary tradition of the Gothic is much less straightforward.  It arises f

The Neo-Gothic or Gothic Revival style of architecture in Ireland borrows heavily from the English Neo-Gothic revival; indeed, some exponents of the English revival such as A. W. Pugin and Thomas Rickman design buildings in Ireland.  However, the Gothic style that never really died out in England as it continued to be the chief style of ecclesiastical architecture; in fact it had achieved something of a vernacular tradition, with masons passing on the Gothic building techniques from father to son.   However, in Ireland, there was no such continuous tradition, so although there are

The Great House, or the Big House is a staple in Irish Gothic novels and poetry.  It refers to the houses built in the largely peaceful period following the Battle of the Boyne in 1690.  The houses are located throughout the Irish countryside.  Where each house is mentioned I have given a county reference (Ireland is made up of 26 counties, with a further 6 in Northern Ireland).   It is worth noting that although some of these houses compare with English Palladian houses of the period (e.g. Russborough House (1741), Castletown House (1722), Powerscourt House (1731)), qu

The Anglo-Irish have been defined (Hugh A. Hall The Anglo-Irish, Irish Statesman 17th August 1929, p467) as “a well-known though never accurately defined, section of our people, differing from the rest very little in blood…but differing more or less widely in religious belief, or in social habits or in political associations, and not infrequently in all three…it may be assumed that the typical Anglo-Irishman is Protestant in faith, has some connection with the landowning class as it existed from the end of the 17th to the end of the 19th century, and cherishes family tradit

    1500-1690         Plantations of large sectors of Ireland.  This meant the introduction of English settlers into lands previously occupied both by the Irish chieftains and also the Old English (descendants of Norman invaders, heavily integrated into Irish life) 1690                 Defeat of Jacobite forces (supported by Irish Catholic majority) by the Williamite forces (supported by the Protestant settlers) at the Battle of the Boyne 1740