Castletown House
— a Palladian face above the river.
Not only on a wall.
“The largest Palladian country house in Ireland, set on the north bank of the Liffey at Celbridge, about an hour by road west of Dublin. It was built in the 1720s for William Conolly, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons and, by contemporary report, the wealthiest commoner in the country. The Florentine architect Alessandro Galilei drew the front; Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, who later designed the Irish Parliament building, finished the work. The avenue from the gates runs straight for the better part of a mile before the house resolves out of it. The proportions hold the way they were drawn.
Castletown House, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
The place, in three passes.
Castletown House sits on the north bank of the River Liffey at Celbridge, in County Kildare, about 22 kilometres west of Dublin [Wikipedia]. The house was built between 1722 and 1729 for William Conolly, who served as Speaker of the Irish House of Commons and was, by contemporary report, the wealthiest commoner in Ireland [Heritage Ireland]. The demesne runs along the river toward Leixlip, with paths through open parkland and two eighteenth-century follies, the Conolly Folly and the Wonderful Barn, within walking distance of the house. The property left the Conolly family in the twentieth century, was rescued by the Hon. Desmond Guinness, founder of the Irish Georgian Society, in 1967, and is managed today by the Office of Public Works.
The earliest and largest Palladian country house in Ireland [Wikipedia]. The Florentine architect Alessandro Galilei drew the centre block in 1722, applying Andrea Palladio's classical proportions to an Irish commission. Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, who later designed the Parliament House on College Green in Dublin, completed the work from 1724 and added the curved colonnades and the flanking pavilions. The principal rooms run along the south front; the Long Gallery on the first floor stretches about 24 metres and was decorated in the Pompeian manner in the 1770s under the direction of Lady Louisa Conolly. Pale limestone faces the thirteen-bay front, and the symmetrical composition holds without ornament.
The Office of Public Works opens the principal rooms by guided tour from approximately mid-March through October [OPW]. The parkland is open daily at no charge, with the main gate at Celbridge and a second entrance on the Leixlip road. Two eighteenth-century follies stand within the demesne. The Conolly Folly, a 42-metre obelisk built on a series of arches, was commissioned in 1740 by Katherine Conolly, widow of William, as a famine-relief work for the local poor. The Wonderful Barn, a spiralling conical granary completed in 1743 on the eastern edge of the estate, sits about three kilometres east of the house.