Remembering old houses on the banks of the Dodder and some ‘Irish Times’ journalists

The Dodder Linear Park and the former grounds of Cherryfield House, once the home of ‘Pussy’ O’Mahony of ‘The Irish Times’ and his family(Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016; click on photograph for full-screen resolution)

Patrick Comerford

Earlier this week, on a damp and misty August morning, I walked some of the way into work along the banks of the River Dodder, from the weir at Firhouse through the Dodder Linear Park and the former grounds of Cherryfield House, to a point just past the junction of Firhouse Road and Knocklyon Road, by the travellers’ site at Cherryfield.

At a point on the river where Kilvare stands on the opposite bank, I came back up onto the main road just beyond the red-brick house once known as Saint Brendan’s and recently renamed Carrigburn, the former home of the actor and RTE radio personality, Ronnie Walsh, and close to the site of a house once known as Cherryfield.

Here at the bend on the river, the Dodder flows into a large pool famous for fishing called Pussy’s Leap, once a popular spot in the 1940s and the 1950s for fishing and swimming in the river.

Two more points along this stretch of the river that were once popular with swimmers were known in the 1940s and 1950s as Joe Alley’s Hole, close to Firhouse Bridge, and the Crusher, at Old Bawn. Closer to Pussy’s Leap, the Poet’s Pool took its name from former home of poet Austin Clarke at Templeogue Bridge.

The house that takes its name from Pussy’s Leap has been vacant for a few years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Pussy’s Leap was at a point where the River Dodder flows at the back of Old Bridge Road. The pool was well known for trout fishing and was popular with swimmers. But in the 1980s a large part of the pool was washed away in Hurricane Charlie.

The pool has since rebuilt itself and now consists of a series of smaller pools that are still used at times by anglers and are known for holding trout. The house above that took its name from Pussy’s Leap has a ‘sale agreed’ sign outside but has been vacant for a long time.

Cherryfield House… once the home of Pussy O’Mahony (Photograph: Patrick Healy Collection, South Dublin County Council)

I sometimes wonder whether Pussy’s Leap took its name from ‘Pussy’ O’Mahony, who lived nearby in Cherryfield House, which was demolished in recent decades.

Pussy O’Mahony (1900-1948) was a colourful character in The Irish Times and in Dublin life for much of the 20th century. He was the General Manager of The Irish Times, a friend and drinking companion of Myles na gCopaleen (Brian O’Nolan, aka Flann O’Brien) and part of the literary and intellectual circles in Dublin life throughout the 1930s and 1940s.

Gerard John Cullen Tynan O’Mahony was born in Dublin on 1 January 1900, into a member of a family that was prominent in Irish literature and journalism. His father John O’Mahony, was a Cork-born barrister; his mother, Nora Tynan O’Mahony from Clondalkin, was a well-known writer and former women’s editor of the Freeman’s Journal. His aunt, Katherine Tynan Hinkson (1861-1931), who wrote under the name Katharine Tynan, was a poet and writer who is best known for her poem ‘All in the April evening.’ She was a close friend of WB Yeats, and it is said Yeats once proposed to her when he was a young man.

Pussy O’Mahony had two younger brothers: John Michael Finbar (‘Barry’) O’Mahony and Daniel (‘Donal’) J Patrick O’Mahony.

Because of one of his middle names, he was known to his family as ‘Cullie.’ But he was given the nickname ‘Pussy’ by his friends and contemporaries because of the bow ties he wore, said to be similar to a certain drawing of a kitten of the period.

O’Mahony was educated at Saint Mary’s College, Rathmines, the Catholic University School, Dublin, Claude Fulcher’s Military Academy and Trinity College Dublin.

During World War I, he was commissioned in 1918 as a second lieutenant in the Royal Irish Regiment from the OTC at Trinity College Dublin and he was posted to Egypt and Palestine.

After World War I, Pussy O’Mahony worked with the Ministry of Labour. He joined the Royal Irish Constabulary on 20 January 1921 and remained in the Auxiliary Division until March 1922. Then, through the British Colonial Office, he enlisted in the British gendarmerie in Palestine.

In Palestine, he was responsible with Major James Munro MC for drawing up defence plans for newly-built Jewish colonies in Galilee and Phoenicia, and for building a road across the Judean Hills, linking Samaria and Jaffa.

When he returned to London from the Middle East in 1925, he joined the commercial staff of the Daily News and later worked with the advertising and news departments of the Daily Express. In 1928, he moved back to Dublin and to The Irish Times, where he became the Arts Editor. Later he worked in the editorial, advertising, circulation and commercial departments.

In 1940, he became Assistant Manager, and when John O’Dockery died he was appointed Manager in 1942.

At some stage, he lost a leg, and for the rest of his life he used a wooden leg. In his history of The Irish Times, Hugh Oram recalls the story of O’Mahony going to a fancy dress party dressed as a toffee apple.

Pussy O’Mahony and Austin Clarke in ‘Dublin Culture’ by Alan Reeve, published in ‘The Irish Times’ in 1940

Both Pussy O’Mahony and his neighbour the poet Austin Clarke, who lived a little further east on the banks of the Dodder by Templeogue Bridge, were among the writers and journalists to feature in a well-known drawing, ‘Dublin Culture,’ by Alan Reeve, that was published in The Irish Times in 1940.

The cartoon shows the editor RM ‘Bertie’ Smyllie in the centre of a gathering in the back room of the Palace Bar in Fleet Street, where Smyllie liked to hold court. He is surrounded by some of the leading writers, painters, poets and critics of the day.

Back row, from left-hand corner: John P Colbert (with pipe), George Burrows, Francis McManus, Maurice Walsh, Patrick Kavanagh (standing), Brian O’Nolan (Myles na Gopaleen), Liam Redmond, Donagh McDonagh, John Chichester (standing).

Sseated right-hand corner: Austin Clarke, Padraic Fallon, FR Higgins.

Standing at left with camera: Alec Newman.

Seated at the table below Newman and camera: Ewart Milne, Lynn Doyle, Leslie Yodaiken, Roibeard O Faireachain, MJ McManus (in hat).

Standing centre left: barman Tom.

Centre table from left: RC Ferguson, Esmonde Little, Bertie Smyllie, Brinsley MacNamara, William Conor.

Looking at book: Seumas O’Sullivan.

Right-hand table far side: Cathal O’Shannon, Jerome Connor, David Sears.

Near side: George Leitch, Desmond Rushton.

Bottom left corner: Alan Reeve (bearded), ‘Pussy’ Tynan O'Mahony, AJ Leventhal, Edward Sheehy.

Front centre table: Patrick O’Connor, Harry Kernoff, Sean O’Sullivan.

Bottom right corner: three barmen Jack, Sean and Mick.

A copy of the cartoon still hangs in the back room of the Palace Bar in Fleet Street, where it was pointed out to me with pride soon after I joined the staff of The Irish Times about 35 years later.

In 1942, Pussy O’Mahony bought Cherryfield House, which stood on the site of an older house, ‘Cherrytree,’ where the ‘Templeogue Ballad’ was printed in 1730. The Fowler family extended the house and reclaimed part of the river bank.

In 1888-1889, the Sunday Literary Society met in Cherryfield, and those who took part included the poet Katherine Tynan, Maud Gonne and the future President of Ireland, Douglas Hyde. In 1897, the architect James Franklin Fuller (1835-1924) designed a gate lodge and greenhouse at the house for James Talbot Power (1851-1916), a surgeon major in the army. He was a younger son of Sir James Power (1800-1877) of Edermine House, Co Wexford, owner of the Power Disillery, while his mother Jane was a daughter of Pugin’s Irish patron, John Hyacinth Talbot. At the time, Cherryfield House stood in grounds extending to 174 acres, which were used as a stud farm. Power later moved to Leopardstown Park, where he died in 1916.

Cherryfield was inherited by John’s brother, Sir Thomas Talbot Power (1863–1930), and from 1909 until 1940, the Harrington family leased Cherryfield from the Power family. John ‘Borneo’ Harrington, who married Mary Seymour, owned the Tynt Arms in Dunlavin, Co Wicklow. He bought land in Dunlavin and Dublin, built a church in Grangecon, Co Kildare, and died at 5 Idrone Terrace, Blackrock, Co Dublin. Before buying Cherryfield he is said to have lived near Esher and to have owned a shipping company, Hope and Harrington. He is said to have brought the first shipload of cattle to Paris after the siege of 1870, and a large picture of a highland bull on the landing at Cherryfield House was supposedly a gift to him from Queen Victoria.

In 1940, the Dock Milling Company bought the house, and in 1942 it was sold to Pussy O’Mahony. He remained the general manager of The Irish Times until he resigned in 1948 because of a prolonged ill-health. He died a few months later.

His funeral in the Church of the Annunciation, Rathfarnham, was attended by the Taoiseach, John A Costello, and he was buried in Saint Maelruain’s churchyard in Tallaght. The O’Mahony family continued to live at Cherryfield House until 1950.

Pussy O’Mahony married Jean Ballantyne Archer in Spanish Place, London, and they had three sons: Peter Cullen Tynan O’Mahony (1930-2000), John Robert O’Mahony (born 1933) and David Edward Tynan O’Mahony (1936-2005).

The youngest son, David Edward Tynan O’Mahony, was later known as the comedian Dave Allen. Another son, Peter Cullen Tynan O’Mahony (1930-1970), was Deputy Chief Sub-Editor and later Design Editor of The Irish Times and editor of The O’Mahony Journal. Peter and the late Ken Grey interviewed me in the mid 1970s for my first position in The Irish Times. He also edited the first book I ever contributed to: Eamon de Valera, ed. PT O’Mahony (Dublin: Irish Times Books 1976).

The Delaney family later lived at Cherryfield, and the house used to house a number of enterprise projects during the 1970s. The house was demolished in 1986 as the gardens, lawns and grounds made way for the Dodder Linear Park that I had walked along on Wednesday morning on my way to work.

In his last Christmas message, Peter described the ruined state of the 200-year-old farmhouse where his father and his family had lived. He described it as the genius loci of the Irish literary revival, and said it ‘stands in a ruinous state, neglected and vandalised, a sad and damning testament to the indifference of modern society to our cultural heritage.’

The name of Cherryfield survives in the traveller site beside Carrigburn.

The River Dodder close to the former site of Pussy’s Leap (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Saint Catherine’s restored to its splendour as the ‘poor man’s’ Cheadle in Dublin

Saint Catherine’s Church, Meath Street, Dublin … the beautiful interior has been restored to its original splendour (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

After presiding at the mid-day Eucharist in the Lady Chapel in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, yesterday [24 June 2015], I decided to take time in the afternoon to visit the Liberties and Saint Catherine’s Church in Meath Street, a church that has risen from the ashes and has been restored to its glory dating back to the 1850s.

In an arson attack in January 2012, Saint Catherine’s Church suffered extensive fire damage, along with smoke and water damage. During the fire, an explosion blew out the stained glass windows, and it seemed 150 years of architectural history had been lost within the space of a mere 20 minutes.

The explosion took out the windows, blew the top off the organ, melted the light fittings which dripped down on to the seats and the floor, and even melted the paint on the walls.”

A homeless man who admitted setting a light to the straw in the Christmas crib in the church was found not guilty by reason of insanity.

The restoration and reconstruction project cost €4.1 million. Most of the cost was covered by insurance, with the additional €230,000 needed provided through local fundraising.

The church reopened at the end of 2013, when Bishop Eamonn Walsh celebrated the first mass in the restored church. A year later, the altar was consecrated by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin.

When I visited the church on Friday morning, I found on one hand a very different, bright and truly splendid interior, and yet, on the other hand, I was in the glorious interior that was first intended when the church opened in 1858.

The East Window by Frederick Settle Barff above the High Altar (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The beautiful East Window above the High Altar by Frederick Settle Barff (1823-1886) was repaired in Germany. The organ, which everyone thought was completely destroyed, was salvaged; and the Stations of the Cross were removed and restored.

The ceiling boards and insulation above the ceiling boards were removed and replaced. The slates on the roof were replaced. All stonework was stripped back to the original stone. The walls and ceilings were cleaned and repainted. The electrical works were replaced, and a complete new lighting system was installed. All the floor tiles were removed and replaced. The altar, and all the marble stonework was cleaned and polished.

The layers of paint melted away from the High Altar, revealing Caen stone (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The High Altar is by Henry Lane, and for many years it was believed that this was stucco plasterwork. However, when the layers of paint melted away they revealed that the altar was made of beautiful French limestone, and all the pillars were made of the same stone.

The butter-coloured stone from Caen in Normandy is inlaid with gold mosaic tiles. A parquet floor has been fitted to replace mid-20th-century linoleum. The wooden pews have been cleaned, varnished and reupholstered. And the stained glass windows have been restored and they now reflect patches of coloured light around the golden stone.

Many of the Victorian, Minton-style Staffordshire tiles have been saved (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Saint Catherine’s was designed in the Decorated Gothic style like the ideal English country parish church favoured by AWN Pugin. The original church was funded by the Power family who were intermarried with the Talbot family, Pugin’s own patrons in Staffordshire and Co Wexford, and the craftsmen who worked on it had all been engaged in Pugin’s own works in Ireland.

The window in the south wall commemorating the Power family from Edermine, Co Wexford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Saint Catherine’s was built in the 1850s to replace an earlier, octagonal shaped Georgian chapel that stood on the site. Canon John Laphen’s proposals for the new church were approved by his parishioners at a meeting called in February 1852 and chaired by Sir James Power (1800-1877) of Edermine, Co Wexford.

Power was the proprietor of Power’s Distillery, and in 1843 he had married Jane Eliza Talbot, a daughter of John Hyacinth Talbot and a first cousin of Maria Theresa Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury. In 1851, at the age of 58, and almost 30 years after the death of his first wife, Anna Eliza Redmond, John Hyacinth Talbot married Power’s sister, Eliza. Perhaps through Power’s persuasive powers, Laphen’s plans were accepted immediately, and JJ McCarthy began work without delay: the foundation stone was laid on 30 June 1852 by Archbishop Cullen.

The restored open timbered roof in Saint Catherine’s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

McCarthy’s plans included a nave with open timbered roof, side aisles and chapel at an estimated cost of up to £9,000. The church was complete by March 1857 – apart from the upper portion of the tower and spire – and was dedicated on 30 June 1858. McCarthy’s intended tower was never completed, and the stub was finished off later with a machiolated parapet. The side elevations include perforated buttresses and trefoil aisle windows above the stone-roofed aisles.

The interior of Saint Catherine’s Church is plain. The impressive great East Window (1862) is by Frederick Settle Barff (1823-1886), a former Anglican priest who had converted to Roman Catholicism in 1852.

The East Window was matched by an equally impressive West Window with perpendicular panelled tracery … just as Pugin advised McCarthy when it came to designing churches.

‘The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Alexandria,’ by William MacBride of Dublin, was in a similar position as the ‘Doom Painting’ in Saint Giles in Cheadle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2010)

The painting in the architrave was in a similar place to the ‘Doom Painting’ in Cheadle, but the space has been left blank in the restoration work (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Indeed, Saint Catherine’s is, for all the world, like a poor man’s version of Saint Giles Church in Cheadle, Staffordshire, which Pugin regarded as his “perfect” work.

However, the painting in the architrave, separating the chancel from the nave, has not been restored. This painting depicted ‘The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine of Alexandria,’ and was by William MacBride of Dublin. It was in a similar position as the ‘Doom Painting’ in Pugin’s ‘perfect’ Cheadle, near Alton Towers, the Earl of Shrewsbury’s home in mid-Staffordshire.

Some of the unusual features in the church that have been retained though include a bust of Kevin Barry masquerading as a saint, which was installed in the early 1920s by a priest with strong nationalist views.

The bust of Kevin Barry, masquerading as a fresh-faced saint (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

‘It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists’

Wittgenstein’s steps in the Great Palm House in the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

Dublin can certainly boast of its writers, including playwrights and poets, novelists and journalists. The capital can boast too of its actors, artists and musicians. And, of course, many would think of it also as a city of architecture and architects.

But how many people think of Dublin as a city of philosophers? After all, few Irish politicians are known for their understanding of logic and linear thinking.

But George Berkeley was educated in Dublin and has given his name to the library in Trinity College. It is said Eamon de Valera tried to persuade Karl Popper to Dublin. He certainly succeeded in enticing the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who lived on Kincora Road in Clontarf from 1938 to 1955 while he was writing What is Life?.

However, I do not know whether Schrödinger brought his cat with him – perhaps the cat was simultaneously in Vienna and in Dublin.

During Schrödinger’s time in Dublin, but only for a short time, the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein also lived in the city. He resigned his professorship at Cambridge in 1947 to concentrate on his writing, and in 1947 he travelled to Ireland, staying at a farmhouse in Red Cross, Co Wicklow, where he began the manuscript volume MS 137, Band R.

Seeking solitude, Wittgenstein moved to ‘Rosro,’ the holiday cottage in Connemara owned by Dr Maurice O’Connor-Drury, and now the Killary Harbour Youth Hostel.

Drury had been an ordinand at Westcott House in Cambridge before changing his mind and studying medicine at Trinity College Dublin. He brought Wittgenstein’s “critique of language” to bear on the practice of medicine, and particularly psychology that promised the same control over the mind that physics achieved with matter.

From November 1948 to June 1949, Wittgenstein lived in in Dublin, staying in the Ross Hotel, now the Aisling Hotel, in Parkgate Street, close to the Phoenix Park. Wittgenstein was critical of a new fashion in house-building in Dublin at the time, and said of those 1930s houses: “Time will not mellow them; nature will neither clothe nor conceal them; and they will remain always as offensive to the mind as to the eye.”

Wittgenstein moved to Dublin in the middle of one of the coldest winters on record – one so cold that all domestic football was cancelled because of the weather.

Inside the Great Palm House this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

During his time in Dublin, he regularly visited the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin. He would go to the Great Palm House and sit on the steps, contemplating life and about life. Perhaps the cold weather made the hothouse the most inviting place in Dublin.

Wittgenstein later returned to England, and died in Cambridge in 1951. A plaque on the steps in the Great Palm House recalls his regular visits and contemplations. Perhaps it was there that he came up with the idea expressed in Tractatus: “It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists.”

Was Wittgenstein a Jew? Was he an agnostic? Did he die a Roman Catholic? Certainly walking around the Botanic Gardens this afternoon, it was easy, on contemplating the beauty of the world, to agree with him that the very existence of the world is mystical in itself.

Earlier, during summer, I was in the Botanic Gardens for the first time I could ever remember on 5 June. And I was left feeling inadequate as I searched for words to describe the beauty of the experience. Instead of continuing the narrative, I decided to post a random collection of about three dozen photographs from that afternoon in the hope that the images would speak for themselves, writing at the time: “They are better than any words I could use. They are sufficient.”

Turner’s curvilinear glasshouses are the most significant wrought and cast iron buildings in Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

This afternoon, two of us had a late lunch in the Garden Tea Rooms before strolling through the gardens in the fading lights of autumn.

The outstanding features of the Botanic Gardens include the curvilinear glasshouses designed and built from 1843 to 1869 by Richard Turner (1798-1881), including the Great Palm House where Wittgenstein sat and thought.

These long, low glasshouses, built with iron and with distinctive curved roofs, are the most significant wrought and cast iron buildings in Ireland and are among the most important 19th century glasshouses surviving in Europe.

Turner also designed spectacular glasshouses in the Belfast Botanic Garden, (1839), the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew (1848), and the Winter Gardens at Regent’s Park in London, and peach houses for the Vice-Regal Lodge in the Phoenix Park, Dublin.

The conservatory he designed with James Pierce for Edermine House, Co Wexford, is now in a sad state of disrepair, but his business was so successful in the Victorian age that he had contracts as far afield as Russia.

Turner’s glasshouses were sophisticated and innovative (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

In their day, Turner’s glasshouses were sophisticated and innovative, with his use of wrought and cast iron at the leading edge of building technology at the time. They have survived the judgment of time, unlike the Dublin suburban houses that Wittgenstein so disliked.

Engineering, architecture, philosophy and nature were combined with art in the Botanic Gardens this afternoon. This was the last day of the exhibition ‘Sculpture in Context,’ with sculptures in the most unusual places throughout the Gardens, including the ponds, the Palm House and in the gallery space, even hidden among the plants and the trees.

For two days this weekend [Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 October 2014], the Botanic Gardens are taking part in the ‘Open House’ programme. Ciarán O’Connor, architect with the Office of Public Works, explores the architecture of the gardens, from the restoration of the Great Pal House to the design of the new library and visitor centre. In preparation for Hallowe’en, a decorated pumpkin competition begins tomorrow.

Walking through the autumn leaves in the Botanic Gardens this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Here are some more images from the Botanic Gardens, without captions that might detract from the beauty of the colours:

Searching for Pugin on the banks of the Slaney

Early morning on the Slaney … looking from the Ferrycarrig Hotel across to Park (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

Patrick Comerford

I awoke on Saturday morning [6 March 2011] to the most breath-taking scene I have ever been greeted with from any hotel room.

I was staying in Liam Griffin’s Ferrycarrig Hotel after visiting the Pugin chapel in the former Presentation Convent in Waterford, and Saint James’s Church in Ramsgrange, an early Pugin church in south Co Wexford.

The Ferrycarrig Hotel is built on the north banks of the Slaney just below the bridge at Ferrycarrig, with sweeping views across the river as it opens out into an estuary-like lake of water, before narrowing again at Wexford to enter the sea at Wexford Harbour.

The hotel has 102 bedrooms, each with a stunning waterfront view. This has long been a strategic location. Nearby, Ferrycarrig Castle is one of the earliest Norman castles built in Ireland, and the first Norman stronghold in Ireland. The castle was built by Robert FitzStephen in 1169 to guard the ferry and river passage. Excavations indicate extensive occupation during the 13th century, although the present 15th century square tower house was probably built by the Roche family.

I awoke as the dark was beginning to fall away to the sound of early songbirds and the flapping of the cormorants on the edge of the water. As the mist slowly cleared and the morning gently dawned, the fields and houses at Park, on the south side of the river, were shining in a reflected glow below. I sat for an hour or more, reading a little but for the most part enjoying the tranquillity and basking in the view.

After breakfast, two of us took another stroll around the waterfront, before heading off again in search of some more Pugin churches in Co Wexford.

From Ferrycarrig, we turned up past the Irish National Heritage Park, along the western banks of the Slaney, through Polehore and Killurin to Ballyhoge, and then turned east to find Bellvue, looking down on the river, where about two dozen swans were resting in the morning sunshine.

The burned-out ruins of Bellvue, built by the Ogle and Cliffe families and torched in 1923 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

George Ogle built the first mansion at Bellvue in 1737, and it passed to the Cliffe family at the beginning of the 19th century. Anthony Cliffe rebuilt Bellvue, and Daniel Robertson designed a magnificent portico formed by eight Ionic columns and approached by a flight of steps that extended the entire length of the central block, and fine, boldly projecting wings extending on either side of the two-storey house.

The Cliffe family stirred local controversy when they changed their membership from the Church of Ireland, becoming Roman Catholics in 1856. They built a new chapel adjacent to Bellvue in 1858-1860, and although the chapel was designed by J.J. McCarthy, he used earlier plans by Pugin. The Building News reported in 1859: “A new church has lately been erected by A. Cliffe ... from the designs of A. Welby Pugin; it is designed in the Early Decorated period and it is well executed by a local builder.”

The Cliffe chapel in Bellvue … built ‘from the designs of A. Welby Pugin’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

In an act of political vandalism, Bellvue was burned to the ground early in 1923. It is amazing that the chapel survived. The roof, in a style typical of Pugin, separates the nave at the west end from the chancel at the east end. The north side betrays how the chapel was once attached to the Cliffe manion, whose forlorn and scattered ruins stand nearby.

From Bellvue, we drove back into Ballyhoge, and north past Macmine Castle to cross the river at Edermine and to visit Edermine House.

Pat Doyle was busy at the time with the laying of a new drive, and invited us to return after lunch. And so we took an hour and a half out to visit Templeshanbo, where a small babbling brook separates the old monastic site associated with Saint Colman from the Church of Ireland parish church and its small churchyard. Here are buried my great-great-grandfather, James Comerford (1775-1825) and his father, Edmond Comerford (1722-1788).

Edermine House … built in 1838 by the Power family (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

We returned through Enniscorthy to Edermine House, which was built by Sir John Power, of Power Distillery fame, in 1838. This impressive collection of buildings has been described as “possibly the most interesting domestic architectural ensemble in County Wexford.”

Edermine House, a fine example of the Greek revival style, is a two-storey, three-bay Italianite villa designed by John B. Keane, with a handsome portico formed by Doric columns. There is a five-bay side elevation with a Venetian window.

Pat Roche of Rochfort House bought Edermine House in 1977 and now owns many of the properties in the surrounding countryside. He has taken great pride in Edermine and has spent a vast amount on maintaining, preserving and restoring the house.

The Pugin Chapel and the once splendid Victorian iron conservatory at Edermine House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

He welcomed us into Edermine, to see the house, the chapel and the once splendid Victorian iron conservatory designed by Richard Turner and James Pierce – an extraordinary curvilinear conservatory with a central semi-dome, flanked by plant houses that once housed a grapery and a peachery.

But we were here to see the chapel commissioned by Sir James Power and his wife, Jane, built in the 1850s. Lady Power was a daughter of Pugin’s Irish patron, John Hyacinth Talbot, and the Power family later intermarried with the Cliffe family of Bellvue.

The extended collegiate seating provides a sedilia … further evidence of Pugin’s hand in the chapel at Bellvie (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

A plaque on the door and a second inside the chapel has led many to believe that the chapel is too late to have been designed by AWN Pugin, and they have ascribed it to either his son, Edward Welby Pugin, or to JJ McCarthy. However, Pat Doyle has long believed that the chapel is an original work by Pugin and that McCarthy merely supervised its later construction, and many contemporary writers believe the intermarriages between the Talbot and Power families underpin the supposition that the chapel was originally designed by the elder Pugin and that the project was supervised either by his son or by McCarthy.

the interior of the chapel in Edermine is remarkably similar to the interior of the Pugin chapel in the former Presentation convent in Waterford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)

The interior of the chapel is well-preserved, and on first sight it looks remarkably similar to the interior of the Pugin chapel we visited on Friday in the former Presentation convent in Waterford. The chapel in Edermine retains Pugin’s rood screen, and the walls are embellished with Pugin’s decorative “diaper work.” Here too is his typical mediaeval-style hammer-beam roof. The reredos, rood screen, chancel tiles and collegiate-style seating all point to this as an original Pugin work.

Phoebe Stanton points out: “The window of the chapel is exactly like various drawings in the early Pugin notebooks.” Further evidence of Pugin’s original design of this chapel is provided by the extension of the chapel seating from the nave into the chancel to provide three extra places for a sedilia – for priest, deacon and subdeacon, a liturgical insistence that could only be Pugin’s.

Pat Doyle is proud of his role as the custodian of a Pugin chapel. He told us how he also rescued the original pulpit and cathedra from Saint Aidan’s, Pugin’s cathedral in Enniscorthy. However, the paintwork in the chapel is peeling, some of the stonework is crumbling, there are signs of the onset of damp and the whole building is in urgent need of tender conservation and restoration work. This is a task that should not be left to Pat Doyle alone, as this is a beautiful, unique part of the architectural heritage of Ireland.

Neither Bellvue nor Edermine is listed by Rosemary Hill as a Pugin building, so we left Edermine feeling we had made some exceptional discoveries during our weekend tour of “Pugin-Land.”

From Edermine, we drove back into Enniscorthy and on along the banks of the Slaney to Bunclody, for a stroll through the village that had once been home to generations of the Comerford family, and for a late lunch in the Millrace. It was dark by the time we got back to Dublin.

The nave window in Edermine … ‘exactly like various drawings in the early Pugin notebooks’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)