George Gossip on the sillification of Irish heritage
It isn’t just the National Trust that’s patronising visitors. Across the Irish Sea, stately homes are racing downmarket, says George Gossip
The dumbing down of country houses isn’t just an English phenomenon. Sadly, many of the National Trust’s new methods and concepts have been brought to Irish shores, where they are presented as the essential recipe for survival.
There is no conclusive evidence to show this policy works in England, where there is a long history of visiting country houses. So it seems strange that Irish owners are asked to adopt the same strategy, when house-visiting is not high on the agenda of their fellow citizens.
Owners of Irish country houses are encouraged to erect irrelevant, misleading signs, and concoct fanciful, inaccurate stories. They are urged to create visually intrusive playgrounds and car parks, develop tea shops for nonexistent visitors and rearrange historic interiors to present a new, untried perception of what visitors ought to see. Innovation, originality and reinterpretation are in vogue, while curatorship, connoisseurship and accuracy are deplored.
The results are predictable. I will always remember the pained expression on the face of a distinguished visiting professor, an expert in the paintings of the Italian Seicento, when asked to ‘join the ghost tour in the dungeon’ at a great 18th-century house.
Thankfully, the small number of historic houses in state ownership, managed by the Office of Public Works, are largely unaffected by this new approach. Rooms are still authentically arranged, guidebooks contain factual information and guides are knowledgeable and even-handed.
But all is not exactly as it should be. Rather than entering through the hall door as honoured guests, today’s visitors approach through the servants’ entrance and walk through a confusing maze of basement corridors, before climbing a staircase to the principal rooms. This happens at Belvedere, a rococo lodge in County Westmeath, and several other
houses. It’s misleading, and provides little information about how houses were occupied and arranged.
A small number of private owners have also welcomed re-interpretation; partly because they’ve been led to believe it’s their best chance of survival, but also because it increases their chance of qualifying for grants. Many owners waste time and money on unsuccessful applications. Even when grants are forthcoming, borrowings and overheads are increased, capital is depleted and land or contents sold to raise the money for matched-funding initiatives.
Houses often lose the best pieces from their collections in this way, and owners are left dangerously overexposed. In fact, grants and promotion are largely directed towards a small number of houses with the potential to attract 100,000 visitors each year; usually an unrealistic aim due to size or remoteness of location. Modest houses and estates can provide an important amenity for local communities, and have the capacity to transform the rural economy, yet their contribution isn’t fully recognised.
Ireland is impressed by the success of Downton Abbey. Apparently, it proves that visitors really wish to learn about the harsh lives of servants, even though the TV series showed mutual respect between master and servant. The so-called experts must have watched a different programme.
Instead of describing how houses were managed and run by explaining the function of rooms and the duties of staff, owners are encouraged to portray servants as downtrodden victims.
The historical owners, if they are ever mentioned, were feckless absentees whose infrequent visits were marked by indolence and drunkenness. Have crucial Anglo-irish figures – such as Burke, Grattan, Swift and Parnell – finally been airbrushed from the picture for ever?
The new form of interpretation might seem amusing but it has a dangerous aspect. In recent years, Irish children were taught to regard country houses as the visible manifestation of an alien culture; something to be deplored and, if possible, destroyed. In fact, many Irish houses were destroyed during the 20th century, which is what makes those that remain quite so precious.
Over the past quarter of a century, conservationists and owners have worked to change the divisive view of history as taught in our schools. They have explained that Ireland’s unique country houses were designed by Irish architects, often in an idiosyncratic version of the Palladian idiom, and built by Irish artisans and craftsmen, using forgotten trades and skills.
Gradually, this argument was winning the day and bringing about a new change in attitudes. We all welcome the fact that the state tourist board, Fáilte Ireland, has recently dropped its contentious and negative marketing label, ‘Big Houses and Hard Times’, removing an unfortunate impediment to a steadily improving situation.
The recent movement towards independence and separatism in Europe has shown the danger of exacerbating old hatreds with an uncanny clarity
There is a lesson here for everybody. While the prejudices of nationalism are easily inflamed, they are remarkably difficult to placate.
George Gossip is Secretary of the Irish Historic Houses Association