Castletown House & the Wonderful Barn
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Castletown House is the first grand Palladian House in Ireland
- the design of the building led to the construction of Leinster
House and from thence to the White House in Washington, D.C.
Begun in 1722 by Speaker William Conolly (1662-1729), Speaker
of the Irish House of Commons, the lands of the estate lie
between Leixlip and Celbridge, hence there are two modern
estate bearing the Castletown name, one in each town.
Conolly commissioned the Italian architect Alessandro Galilei
(1691-1737) to prepare plans for the house. With Galilei's
return to Italy in 1718 overseeing actual construction was
left to Edward Lovett Pearse who was in possession of Palladio's"Quattro
Libri dell' Architettura" - Four Books on Architecture
which were printed in Venice in 1570. Palladio's books drew
heavily on the classical orders and reflected the essence
of High Renaissance philosophy of calm and balance or harmony.
Castletown House reflects the balance of that philosophy with
a great central block of grey stone flanked by golden Ardbraccan
stone curved colonnades which join the kitchen and stables
to the main house.
Conolly's widow, Kathleen, continued to live in the house
after his death. The house was inherited by Speaker Conolly's
nephew, William, who died two years later, leaving the house
to his son Tom, known as "Squire Conolly." Born
at Leixlip Castle, it was Tom and his wife, Lady Louisa Lennox,
who continued to improve the house, adding the world-famous
plasterwork by the Lafranchini brothers.
As was the custom with great houses, constructions of various
types were made to create vistas. To the west of the house
Kathleen Conolly had built "Conolly's Folly," an
obelisk which Dr. Mark Giroud has called "the one piece
of real architecture in all of Ireland." Though built
to mark the western edge of the Conolly lands, the folly is
actually built on the lands of neighbouring Carton House,
home to the FitzGeralds, Earls of Kildare and Dukes of Leinster.
Princess Mariga, the late wife of Desmond Guinness, is interred
there under the central arch.
To mark the eastern vista of Castletown a conical shaped
building - The Wonderful Barn - went up in 1743 with the stairs
ascending upwards around the exterior of the building. It
is flanked by two smaller towers. A granary, short tower and
dovecote have all been put forward as reasons for building
the unique structure. In Georgian times it was a custom to
use doves as a delicacy when other animal sources of food
were not in season. The height of structure would also lend
itself to sport shooting, while a central hole through each
of the floors would suggest a place to store grain.
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