Monumental follies in focus
Ireland is full of head-scratching delights
PASSION, romance, revenge, and retribution. No, not another major pyscho-thriller starring Paul Mescal, Andrew Scott or Barry Keoghan.
We’re talking here about Belvedere House, near Mullingar in Co Westmeath. The early 18th century stately home on Lough Ennell boasts Ireland’s best-known folly, the Jealous Wall. This 60m-high, three-storey sham ruin was built in a fit of pique in 1760 by Lord Belfield.
You may well be thinking, like Ireland doesn’t have enough genuine ruins already? But there was logic in the lord’s move. According to local legend, the colossal gothic whimsy was built to block out the view of a magnificent new residence belonging to the lord’s younger, and heartily-detested, brother. Families, eh?
Ireland is festooned with follies, or what might be called irrational architecture. Another striking example at Belvedere is the Gothic Arch, which dates from the same era. No story this time, just the brooding presence of this grotesque, lichen-encrusted structure which glowers mournfully across the lough.
These follies are featured in a book called Irish Follies and Whimsical Architecture by George Munday, published by the O’Brien Press.
The stunning photography includes shots of Connolly’s Folly in Castletown, Co Kildare, and a former ice-cream parlour with harp-shaped windows in Roscommon.
The book also features Ireland’s only inland lighthouse, the Ballycurrin beacon on Lough Corrib. The dictionary definition of a folly, by the way, is ‘an ornamental building, usually a tower or mock ornamental ruin’, although architectural historian Stuart Barton’s description of them as ‘foolish monuments to greatness and great monuments to foolishness’ chimes well.
So the Ballycurrin Lighthouse might not fulfil that exact definition. It was built by a local landowner, Henry Lynch, around 1772. According to local legend, he needed a marker so that he could make his way home after visiting the pubs of Galway.
Ireland is rich in follies: bogus ruins, gothic outrages, geometrical curios, bridges, obelisks, pyramids, hermitages, sentry boxes, grottos, barbicans and gateways.
One of the few places you can see an example of just about every one is at Tollymore Forest Park in Co Down, once the private estate of the Earl of Clanbrassil, who also had the title of Viscount Limerick. Along the Shimna River you’ll find incredible bridges, statues and monuments that seem to be straight out of the Tales of Narnia.
Indeed, CS Lewis, who wrote the Chronicles, regularly walked among these follies. You can even see a fountain in the shape of a stone lion’s head — locally called Aslan.
Another visitor wrote these words: ‘Just before I was leaving, the old lady came up to my room and said in a very hysterical way: “Must you go? Oh! young Herr, must you go?” She was in such an excited state that she seemed to have lost her grip of what German she knew, and mixed it all up with some other language... When I told her that I must go at once, she asked again: “Do you know what day it is?” I answered that it was the fourth of May.’
No, not Star Wars, but Dracula. Bram Stoker, the Dublin creator of the world’s finest horror story married local woman Florence Balcombe from Newcastle, just 3km from the forest. Local gossip has it that Bram spent time in the forest.
A folly is, according to the Architectural Heritage website, fairly easy to define. ‘If a building makes you stop, and scratch your head and ask yourself “Why?” then unless it is a seat of government there is a good chance it is a folly.’
No illusions in Hillsborough, Co Down, the seat of power in the North, where the representative of the Queen resided. In days gone by, it was a Governor, now it’s the Northern Secretary.
Chris Heaton-Harris doubtless finds the magnificent 18th century Hillsborough Castle to his taste. Aside from the pastoral view and extensive gardens, the demesne comes with, according to the guide book, its own attached ‘ruined folly’. This presumably alludes to the Victorian gazebo you can see through the wrought iron gates, and not anything to do with government policy in the North.