Byrne, Gillian
(1997)
The Redecoration and Alteration of
Castletown House
By Lady Louisa Conolly
1759-76.
Masters thesis, National University of Ireland Maynooth.
Abstract
Castletown House, Celbridge, County Kildare is the largest and finest palladian1
country house in Ireland. Its building in 1722 marked the beginning of the palladian
invasion of Ireland and the house is contemporary with the earliest examples of
palladianism in England. The elegance and formality of Castletown may certainly
compare with that to be found in the English great house of the period, but it was
scarcely typical of Ireland, for it was the rule to spend lavishly on everything that
brought immediate pleasure at the cost of neglecting house and grounds and to
sacrifice the niceties of living.
Castletown was built for William Conolly (1662-1729), speaker of the Irish house
of commons. He was a self made man and was reputedly the wealthiest man in
Ireland. Conolly was a legend in his own lifetime and one petitioner wrote
‘whatsoever you undertake, God prospers’. As speaker it became necessary to have a
residence close to the capital and he acquired the land near the river Liffey at Celbridge in 1709. Before this he had a house, though somewhat smaller than
Castletown, at Rodanstown near Kilcock, County Kildare1 but it was not suitable for a
man of his position - the size of a house was often an indication of a family’s
importance. An outstanding characteristic of Irish Georgian houses is a largeness of
scale, due primarily to the cheapness of labour but more directly to the zest of a high
spirited and competitive oligarchy inspired by the entire absence of suitable housing
to vie in magnificence.
| Item Type: |
Thesis
(Masters)
|
| Keywords: |
Castletown House;
Lady Louisa Conolly;
1759-76; |
| Academic Unit: |
Faculty of Arts,Celtic Studies and Philosophy > History |
| Item ID: |
5104 |
| Depositing User: |
IR eTheses
|
| Date Deposited: |
04 Jul 2014 11:07 |
| URI: |
|
| Use Licence: |
This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available
here |
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