The entrance hall at Summergrove
Robert O’Byrne has made a career out of wangling his way into incredible homes. “My life is going around visiting people, whether they want me there or not,” jokes the author and lecturer, whose interest in Irish architectural heritage has generated numerous books—including 2009’s “Romantic Irish Homes”—and a popular blog, “The Irish Aesthete.” He says he knows most of Ireland’s stately homeowners.
O’Byrne’s little black book has now been mined for a handsome new tome. “The Irish Country House: A New Vision” (Rizzoli) documents 15 exceptional properties, ranging from castles to villas, across an array of periods and architectural styles.
There is the stately Summergrove in County Laois, in the heart of the country, with its elegant facade of Venetian and Diocletian windows and interior features such as pedimented doorcases and rococo plasterwork. In County Longford, the Georgian-era Castlecor House includes an octagonal hunting lodge, complete with Corinthian columns, a four-sided fireplace and 19th-century neo-Egyptian stencil work.
The music room at Killua Castle
The history of Killua Castle, meanwhile—situated one hour outside Dublin—charts how a classical mansion was transformed into a neo-Gothic fortress, and later from wreck to renovation. The process was overseen by the banker Allen Sanginés-Krause and his wife Lorena, who have also filled the home with their collection of medieval and early Renaissance art.
Killua highlights a unifying theme in the book: all the properties have been chosen to counter the image of Ireland’s grand houses as in decay. “It’s a narrative going back hundreds of years that the Irish country house is on the verge of collapse,” says O’Byrne. “Very often one tends to overplay the decaying, the falling down, the lapsing into ruin.” With this new book, however, he wants to “tell a positive story,” adding that there are “wonderful properties all over Ireland that are being rescued and restored.”
The living room at Killoughter
How the new homeowners are reviving the interiors—from reinstating four-poster beds to adding hand-printed reproduction wallpaper—is an intriguing part of the story, told visually by photographer Luke White. The 18th-century villa Killoughter, for instance, is enlivened with Irish landscape paintings, hand-colored prints of Dublin and antique wood carvings from the workshop of Dutch sculptor Grinling Gibbons, collected by the owner, former banker and businessman Sir David Davies.
Davies is also the president of the Irish Georgian Society, whose aim is to “conserve, protect and foster an interest and a respect for Ireland’s architectural heritage.” This book shows how dedicated individuals are bringing such an endeavor to life by reimagining the country’s landmarks, and making them newly relevant.
Photographs by Luke White
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