17 August 2015

Scholarstown House … part of the
architectural heritage of Knocklyon

Scholarstown House … rebuilt around 1909, but dates back to 1586 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

On my way home late yesterday I stopped to look at Scholarstown House, a handsome, well-proportioned early 20th century house with an interesting history. It is an attractive setting on Scholarstown Road, just a short walking distance from my house, and I pass it many times in any week.

Although Scholarstown House was built or rebuilt at the beginning of the last century, the house retains substantial original fabric and it shows the continuity of style and form with subtle modifications that are prevalent in buildings of this type.

This is a detached three-bay two-storey house with roughcast rendered walls. The timber sash windows are wider to the first floor and paired to the ground floor outer bays. The central glazed timber door has a segmental-arched radial fanlight above the flat projecting bracketed timber hood.

The pitched slate roof has gable chimney stacks. There is a large, three-storey, square-plan wing to the rere, with further ancillary buildings in the garden.

The original Scholarstown House was first built in 1588 for Archbishop Adam Loftus, after he acquired the townland of Scholarstown as part of the Manor of Rathfarnham following their confiscation from Lord Buttevant in 1583.

By the time of his death in 1605, Archbishop Loftus was the owner, landlord and controller of much of the lands and estates in the Rathfarnham and Knocklyon area, including Scholarstown, Oldcourt, Tymon, Woodtown, Killakee, Ballycragh, Ballycullen and Mount Pelier Hill or the Hell Fire Mountain. His descendants soon became one of the most prominent, manipulative and long-tailed families among the landed aristocracy in Irish politics.

Over the past four or five centuries, the residents of Scholarstown House were mostly tenant farmers. The earliest recorded tenant, Henry Jones, was killed during the siege of Rathfarnham in 1641. In 1659, David Gibson was living in Scholarstown House.

In 1691, the Rathfarnham estates, including Scholarstown, passed to Lucy Loftus when her father, Adam Loftus (1625-1691) of Rathfarnham Castle, Baron of Rathfarnham and Viscount Lisburne, died fighting on the Williamite side at the Siege of Limerick in 1691. The cannonball that blew his head off is now in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.

Lucy Loftus was his only daughter and heiress, and when she married Tom Wharton as his second wife the following year, in July 1692 she brought a vast fortune and estate to the marriage, augmenting Tom Wharton’s income by some £5,000 a year. Her vast Rathfarnham estates included Knocklyon, Scholarstown, Woodtown, Ballyroan, Ballycragh, and other tracts of land in Whitechurch, Cruagh, Firhouse, Oldcourt, Tymon and Tallaght.

Tom and Lucy Wharton were the parents of the infamous ‘Rake of Rathfarnham,’ Philip Wharton (1698-1731), who became Duke of Wharton and Earl of Rathfarnham. He inherited the Rathfarnham estate, including Scholarstown, when his parents died in 1716. He also inherited his parents’ great influence and wealth, with an estimated income of £14,000 a year. But he would quickly dissipate this heritage within less than a decade.

In 1723, while he was still only 24, Philip Wharton first tried to sell Rathfarnham Castle and Estates, including Scholarstown, to Viscount Chetwynd for £85,000. But he was forced to reduce his asking price when eventually he sold them for £62,000 to the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, William Conolly. Conolly would never reside at either Rathfarnham Castle or Scholarstown House, instead letting both to a number of tenants.

Later, Philip married his second wife, Maria Theresa Comerford, in Madrid in 1726 – just three months after the death of his sadly neglected and abandoned first wife Martha. Maria Theresa’s mother, Henrietta Comerford, died in Madrid in 1747. Her step-father was Major-General John Comerford (ca 1665-1725), of Finlough in Loughkeen, Co Tipperary, of Waterford, and of Madrid.

When she was widowed, Maria Theresa moved to London, where she subsisted on a small Spanish pension, and died in 1777. There were no children to inherit her claims to her husband’s former wealth and titles in Ireland, including his estates and castles at Rathfarnham Castle, Knocklyon Castle and Scholarstown House.

‘Speaker’ Conolly, who bought the Rathfarnham estate in 1723, including Scholarstown House, left his name in local memory, and a field in the area was known as “Connolly’s Freehold.”

The house is shown clearly on John Rocque’s map of Dublin in 1757.

In 1789, Scholarstown House was leased to the Somervell or Somerville family.

However, during the first half of the 19th century, the La Touche family of Marlay Park became the immediate lessor of Scholarstown, probably through defaults on mortgages held by their bank.

Transactions in the mid 19th century show Scholarstown House and farm formed a 92 acre estate. In 1836, Scholarstown House was leased by John David La Touche of Marlay Park to Patrick Dunne.

Between 1845 and 1847, Father Matthew Flanagan, Parish Priest of Francis Street parish in Dublin and secretary to the board of Maynooth College, was living in Scholarstown House.

Flanagan was instrumental in the design, building and decoration of the Church of Saint Nicholas in Francis Street. He brought in John Hogan and some of the great sculptors, painters and craftsmen in early and mid-19th century Dublin to work on the interior of his new church.

But he also left reminders of his own family tree around the church. In the west wall of the north transept there is a monument to his mother, Mary Flanagan, who died in 1830, and his brother, Stephen Flanagan, as well as a white marble sarcophagus on the east wall of the south transept.

However, the house had returned to the Dunne family, and Griffith’s Valuation shows a Mrs. Dunne was living in Scholarstown House in the 1850s.

The house later passed to Richard Duncan King, and in 1876 Michael Walsh acquired King’s lease of Scholarstown House.

Walsh later mortgaged the house to the Munster and Leinster Bank, but in the 1890s he tried to burn down the house in an insurance scam. He was arrested, tried, convicted and jailed, and died in Mountjoy Prison on 17 May 1899.

Scholarstown House then passed to his niece, Ellen Tierney, from Killeen, Birr, Co Offally.

By 1901, the Jolly family was living in Scholarstown House. They owned a dairy yard and shop in Rathfarnham village, and rebuilt and restored the fire-damaged house in the 1900s.

The Jolly family sold Scholarstown House to the O’Brien family in 1928. The surrounding farmland has been sold off in recent decades for housing development, but Scholarstown House remains an interesting part of the architectural and historical heritage of the Knocklyon and Rathfarnham area.

Scholarstown House is part of the architectural heritage of the Knocklyon and Rathfarnham area (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

For other postings on the architectural heritage of South Dublin see:

Berwick Hall.
The Bottle Tower, Churchtown.
Brookvale House, Rathfarnham.
Camberley House, Churchtown.
Dartry House, Orwell Park, Rathfarnham.
Ely Arch, Rathfarnham.
Ely House, Nutgrove Avenue, Rathfarnham.
Fernhurst, 14 Orwell Road, Rathgar.
Fortfield House, Hyde Park, Terenure.
No 201 Harold’s Cross Road, the birthplace of Richard Allen.
Homestead, Sandyford Road, Dundrum.
Kilvare House, also known as Cheeverstown House, Templeogue Road.
Knocklyon Castle.
Laurelmere Lodge, Marlay Park.
Marlay Park.
Mountain View House, Beaumont Avenue, Churchtown.
Newbrook House, Taylor’s Lane, Rathfarnham.
Old Bawn House, Tallaght.
Rathfarnham Castle.
Sally Park, Fihouse.
Scholarstown House, Knocklyon.
Silveracre House, off Sarah Curran Avenue, Rathfarnham.
Synge House, Newtwon Villas, Churchtown, and No 4 Orwell Park, Rathgar.
Templeogue House.
Washington House, Butterfield Avenue, Rathfarnham.
Westbourne House, off Rathfarnham Road.