Devonshire Day in Lismore Castle

Yesterday we had a lovely day in Lismore Castle. It was a fundraiser for the annual Immrama Festival of Travel Writing which will be held in June and this was the 6th Devonshire Day, as this day is called. It is so called as the Castle is the Irish seat of the Dukeof Devonshire, and the idea has evolved into an annual day out on the Sunday nearest to St. Patrick's Day, which falls tomorrow.

The Avenue from the riding house looking towards the main gate and courtyard



The Castle is not normally open to the public, as the son of the present Duke, Lord Burlington, and his wife, spends quite a lot of time in Lismore, and as the castle is an upmarket guest house for well-heeled guests (those who can spare about €35,000 for a week's full-board with the butlers on hand for a party of 12!) it is also not practical to have tourists tramping about the rooms. So this day is an opportunity to see a little of the interior and people travel from far and wide to enjoy the day.

Enjoying the tea during the talk

The visitors have Devonshire Cream Tea in the Ballroom, which was formerly a chapel and is known as the "Pugin Room" as it was designed by Augustus Pugin, an architect and designer who also designed the Houses of Parliament in Westminister. A number of church and big house interiors have his signature wood panelling and furnishings. It is now used as a room for events like concerts, wedding receptions occasionally, and banqueting hall for large parties of houseguests. It has a marble fireplace which was originally built by Pugin for the Crystal Palace exhibition in London in 1851 and brought here after that was dissembled, with the addition of "Céad Mille (sic) Fáilte" written across the top (this means 100,000 welcomes in Irish.)

Various views of the castle from the courtyard

When Prince Charles and his then fiancée Camilla came to Lismore a few years back for the 60th birthday bash of his pal the current duke who was then Lord Hartington. (The old Duke died some years later and Lord Hartington inherited the title. I suppose that means that Lord Burlington, his son, is technically the new Marquis of Hartington, but he is still using the same title.) Charles and Camilla really chilled out on their visit and did a handshaking walkabout after Sunday service in the Cathedral, with minimal security on hand. He is seen as either a harmless tree-hugger or vilified for his marital infidelity to Diana, but he was accepted in Lismore as another visitor to the castle, without much fuss being made of either of them.

The Duke's main home is Chatsworth in Derbyshire, which is one of the great houses of England and a major tourist attraction, much more open to the public than Lismore Castle. Bolton Abbey is another of their houses, and I have never been to either place, but my son played cricket with the Lismore Cricket Team when they went to Bolton Abbey play the Duke's 11 some years ago, and had a chance to see both houses. Our sons have had summer jobs there as butlers over their student years as well, and were working there for the royal visit. They are extremely discreet so I never get any gossip from them, no matter how much I fish!

Enough potted history for now. Yesterday's event was practically fully booked, as the format was five groups of 60 max came at 80 minute intervals. They arrived via the Castle Avenue to the Courtyard and went to the Ballroom, where they had their tea, surrounded by the splendour of the stained glass windows and the Pugin-designed chandelier and wall lights.

During the tea there were talks on the history of the Castle and Lismore, the "Big houses" along the River Blackwater, and the Castle Gardens from various local historians and the Head Gardener. These informative talks put a context on the day, and after tea they got a guided tour of the spring gardens from the wife of the Head Gardener, as he was out of action from a (work-related) foot injury.

So that was the pattern of the day. I am involved in the festival from the health and safety angle and attend all the events as a First Aid person. This entailed accompanying each group around the gardens, tastefully clad in a yellow Hi-Viz jacket and armed with a medical kit! Luckily my skills weren't called on yesterday and I had a chance to take lots of photos and learn about the wonderful plants, shrubs and trees, and the garden's architecture, which has the remnants of a 19th century Joseph Paxton greenhouse. Paxton designed the above mentioned Crystal Palace in London for the Exhibition in 1851 and he was the head gardener of Chatsworth but was also responsible for how Lismore Castle looks today, as he re-designed it to its current look. There are a number if sculptures in the gardens, which are nice to come upon as you go around. There is a typical Anthony Gormley bronze body cast - his own as is his signature - and that is in the middle of an ancient yew walk in the photo.

His most famous work is The Angel of the North in Newcastle-on-Tyne in England, visible for miles around. The magnolias are magnificent right now and you can see their splendour in the photo, a highlight of the spring garden, along with rhododendrons and azaleas.

I hope you like the photos and links and if you get a chance to come to Lismore you can visit the gardens from tomorrow until October when they will be open daily, minus the guided tour - you can get a brochure with identifiers for the trees and shrubs and history - and the Castle Arts Gallery which is in the renovated West Wing and has a different contemporary exhibition every summer. If you like weird and wonderful art - in a multitude of media from sculpture to video installations to technology installations - in a lovely setting then this one's for you!

Sotheby's have had a preview of their Irish Art sales here for the past few years as well, which gives a nice opportunity to see some amazing artworks. The annual exhibitions are not all to my taste, but then I am a traditionalist at heart and love a good Old Master. There was a show two years ago when they juxtaposed the old and the new, with a private Florida-owned collection of very contemporary stuff out in old stables and coalsheds that led to a lot of bewildered head-scratching, and in the Gallery there were lovely works by Van Eyck, Gainsborough, and other famous painters. Each owner selected the works of the other for the exhibition, an odd fusion to say the least!

Yesterday's visitors were very enthusiastic about the whole experience and then they went to the Heritage Centre as part of the day's package. The sun shone and there was spring warmth in the air, and Farmer's Market was in full swing in the Castle Avenue,

so the town was buzzing.

Immrama will have its launch in the Gallery in a month or two, so watch this space!

(If you want to see more photos I have uploaded them to a Picasa slideshow on the sidebar of this blogpost, right at the top right at present. Click on these photos to see them full-screen size, if you want the detail.)

The Stained Glass window overlooking the Ballroom with the Pugin Chandelier in the foreground

The Stained Glass window over the Minstrel's Gallery, with St. Patrick on the Right and (I think) St. George on the Left

Some of the sculpture in the Lower Garden

The yew walk with the Gormley figure visible on the right half-way down

The Pugin marble fireplace

The misspelt Irish greeting

The castle from the Lower Gardens

The Magnolias in full bloom in the Lower Garden with the Riding House in the background. This straddles the Avenue and links the upper and lower gardens