Narnia and Nostalgia in Mullingar

Last weekend when I was at the Labour Party Conference in Mullingar at the Park Hotel I took some time out from the proceedings on Saturday afternoon to explore Belvedere House outside Mullingar on the shores of Lough Ennell. It was a place I was curious about as I had seen in signposted when en route to the INO (nurses' trade union) conference in Cavan some years back. Also when the film of C.S. Lewis's Narnia Chronicle "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" was released a few years ago Belvedere House was described as the Irish Narnia. A Narnia Trail had been developed in the grounds of this old estate, and it was a popular attraction for Narnia fans.


It was a beautiful sunny spring day, a rarity in itself after so much bad weather recently, so I was glad to get out and explore a part of the country I had never visited before. Mullingar is a garrison town in Co. Westmeath, in the Irish Midlands, and it is famous for the late Joe Dolan, who was known as "The man from Mullingar". Joe boosted our fragile national pride back in the '70s when we were still very insecure, there were no jobs and everyone expected to emigrate, as he had international hits with "Make me an Island" and other popular songs. He is immortalised in Mullingar town centre with a bronze statue made by Genesis, a local company.

I tried to take a photo of Joe's statue as I was driving through town and managed to get a shot while stopped at the lights, as it was impossible to get parking on the street. So much for the bypass, the town was jammed with traffic. Of course I discovered later that I could have gone to Belvedere House by another route, but I wanted to see the statue as there had been so much hype about it, and while I wasn't a hardcore Joe fan, I did spend many a night dancing to Joe Dolan and the Drifters in their showband heyday, which coincided with my Dancehall Days!

The showband era in Ireland is a peculiarity of this island and much has been written and filmed about it, most famously in the film version of William Trevor's short story The Ballroom of Romance, coincidentally made by a Lismore man, the internationally renowned film director Pat O'Connor, who is married to Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, the film star.

Belvedere House and Gardens

Back to Belvedere House. It was bought in 1992 for the price of a semi-detached house today - IR£250,000 - by Westmeath County Council, who seem to have handled the stewardship very well, in that it is well-maintained, and preservation is sensitive to the original design in the house and the gardens. So they are doing a good job from what I saw on my short visit. The history is fascinating, as there were a host of eccentric aristocratic and bohemian characters in residence from 1740 right up to the 1980s when the last resident died. No children were ever born there so there were no inheritors when the last owner, Rex Beaufort, died. It is a very imposing house, a Georgian Palladian villa, and has lovely Italianate formal gardens laid out in terraces down to the shores of Lough Ennell. The midlands of Ireland are full of lakes, and many drain into the River Shannon, the longest river in the British Isles.



The grounds of Belvedere House are parkland dotted with obscure follies which reflect the owners' vanity as well as their state of mind at the time. The most fascinating is the Jealous Wall, the largest folly in Ireland, which was built to hide a more imposing mansion, Tudenham House, now in ruins, that the brother of the 1st Lord Belvedere, Robert Rochfort, had built nearby and was visible from the terraces of Belvedere House. He couldn't bear to have to see this daily reminder of his brother's wealth so he blocked it with this facade! A classic case of status anxiety, and obviously keeping up with the Jones's isn't a 20th Century invention. Robert seemed to have been paranoid, and a thoroughly nasty piece of work. He was known as the Wicked Earl, as he kept his wife, Mary Molesworth, imprisoned in the house for 31 years for alleged adultery with another brother.

The grounds are laid out in pathways along the lakeshore, and through forestland. It is wonderful to see how the Narnia settings and locations are incorporated into the landscape, which is all a bit magical, and even though there wasn't a snowflake in sight, you could see how captivating it is to children. There is a lovely octagonal folly, denoting Cair Paravel, and a pretty convincing Beaver Dam. I liked the way you stumble upon the various scenes as you wander around, and there is an adventure playground with ropes across a Bridge to Terabithia, with its Narnia reference. There is the inevitable coffee and souvenir shop, incorporated into the outbuildings, and a wonderful Victorian Walled Garden with the original fully restored glasshouse.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing tourist in Mullingar and the visit to Belvedere was a fascinating snapshot of how the other half - no, perhap a fraction of that - lived in an era of noblesse oblige for the privileged aristocracy.

The irony of visiting the local "Big House" during the Labour Party Conference wasn't lost on me - after all, Belvedere House was the setting of the now-defunct "Mullingar Accord" between Labour and Fine Gael in 2004!

We stayed in a nice B&B in a pub near Mullingar, as the hotels were either full or charging over the odds for the conference weekend. Mary Lynch's Pub is on the banks of the Royal Canal that goes all the way to Dublin from the Shannon for 146km. It was pleasant, warm and comfortable, with a delicious full Irish breakfast to start the day, and the pub itself was a real old world local - not an ersatz Irish pub with faux artefacts like so many are nowadays.

Labour Party Conference - a weekend in Mullingar

We have been in Mullingar, Co. Westmeath in the Irish Midlands, this weekend for the Irish Labour Party Conference, which was attended by around a thousand delegates from all over the country. It was a lively event, as these occasions generally are, with plenty of debate on the hot topics of the day and an excellent speech from Eamon Gilmore, the Party leader, last night, which gave a realistic message to the country in these straitened economic times. There was a great positive buzz at the conference, and while there is recognition that it might be a thankless job to be in government at this time, with the economy in shreds, house prices crashing thanks to the over-inflated property bubble, and jobs crises, the present government have to do a whole lot better at rebuilding confidence or they might be looking down the barrel of a ballot box in the near future.



This June we will have local and European elections in Ireland, so there was a lot of interest in the various candidates, who have already been selected. As hubby is running for the Lismore Town Council, he had a special interest in that whole area, and he is in campaigning mode with canvassing starting in the coming month or so. He is currently the Mayor of Lismore, and he had to wear the chain at the Leader's address as did all the Councillors who hold such office, either at town or county level, so there was a lot of bling on display among the chain gang! I won't go into the complexities of local government where the various Parties rotate the position of Mayor on an annual basis, but if you are driven by curiosity you could check out the Town Council.



There will be a mini-budget in two weeks which promises to be tough; we have no idea yet what form of cuts or increases it will bring but it will be a hairshirt one. The trade unions called off a national day of strike/protest tomorrow when they agreed to accept a government invitation to recommence talks on a national recovery plan. The current Social Partnership agreement took a hit back in February when pension levies on the public sector workers was unilaterally announced, leading to the massive protest march which I wrote about, and threatening industrial unrest unlike any seen since the 70s. I wasn't looking forward to the day of action which would have been a work-to-rule rather than a work stoppage in the nurses' case, but it would have been inevitable if talks were not resumed.


So this weekend was a chance for the Labour Party who have not been in government in over a decade to lay out their stall for economic recovery and I am not going to go into the detail, as it is all on Eamon Gilmore's Leader's Address here. Suffice to say it was a blend of pragmatism and realistic and workable solutions for the recovery, which would raised taxes for the high earners, without penalising those on lower incomes. It would also see an end to the conflict of interest links between banks and developers and the cronyism that has been exposed in various Tribunals of Enquiry in recent years and particulary the massively inflated salaries and bonuses of the bank chiefs. The capping of salaries of bank CEOs in the wake of various revelations of vulgar excess has led to some candidates rejecting job offers, as they seem to see it as an affront to their dignity and a compromise on the lifestyle to which they became accustomed to have to live on up to €500,000 a year. (Yes, that's half a million Euro, about $665,000 or £465,000 - you try getting by on a pittance like that!)




The diversity of Labour members breaks the stereotypical mould, as they represent every sector and walk of life. Yes, there are a lot of trade unionists and student activists, and public sector workers, and academics, but what strikes me is their integrity and passion, and genuine indignation at the state of the country now, how the boom was wasted by not investing for the rainy day that is now well and truly here! Just so you know it's a party true to its Labour roots, they rounded off the Conference, as usual, with a rousing rendition of The Red Flag - the anthem of the International Labour Movement, which was written in 1889 by an Irish man, Jim Connell, and was the British Labour Party's anthem for years.


I don't want to give the impression that the conference was merely a collective of worthy sandal-wearing, bearded sackcloth-and-ashes types, as there was a lot of enjoyment and socialising (as befits Socialists!). It was unfortunate that the clocks went forward last night, as we were deprived of a much-needed extra hour to either party or sleep. It meant that the dancing to a local band (The Tennessee Breakdown Country Band, in case you're wondering!), which kept us all on our toes with their jiving country sounds, ended at 3a.m. instead of 2a.m. There were a lot of bleary-eyed delegates around at this morning's session! The Leader's Address, broadcast live on national TV and via the web, coincided with Earth Hour, which was just grist for the mill of the anti-Labour media. They were gleeful about the fact that people would miss the speech if they actually did what Labour endorse as ardent supporters of Earth Hour, which would be to turn off the telly and uneccessary lights!


In case you think I spent every waking minute in the conference hall listening to speeches and motions - I didn't! I took time out on Saturday afternoon to visit Belvedere House outside Mullingar, a lovely 18th Century house and gardens, which was given to Westmeath County Council by the last owner in recent years. It is now a major tourist attraction and I took a lot of photos of the house and grounds. It is beautifully situated on the shores of Lough Ennell, and the park has been themed as Narnia, with the follies given a new identity as various Narnia locations and settings. I will either post them separately or return to edit this post tomorrow!