Having spent an extremely enjoyable evening at the new Conor McPherson play, The Brightening Air, in the Gate Theatre on Friday, I made my way the following morning to Avondale in Co Wicklow for a visit to the ancestral home of Parnell.
I had long planned to visit the house and do the Treetop walk there, but I was also hoping to identify the part of the historical estate where a series of football matches had taken place in 1886.
The wonderful guide who brought us on a hugely informative tour of the house was aware of the matches but was unable to tell me exactly where the location was. In an unusual turn of events however, he opened up another avenue of curiosity, one that I was blissfully unaware of before my visit to Avondale.
As we made our way through the various rooms in Avondale House we passed through the drawingroom. This was the space to which the ladies retired for their after-dinner tea and gossip, leaving the men to their cigars and cognac in the diningroom.
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The focal point of the drawingroom is a fireplace designed by the famous Italian artisan Pietro Bossi. On first view, the ornate fireplace features the image of a bowl of fruit but which on closer inspection could also be some people in a boat. The design of a bowl or urn seems to have been a common motif of his, but here the ambiguity of the image is undoubtedly an intended optical illusion.
Not being a connoisseur of ornate fire surrounds however, I was intrigued by the work and its creator. For someone whose work adorns such famous Irish houses as Avondale, Áras an Uachtaráin and the office of the Taoiseach, surprisingly little is known about the man.
As Bossi worked in privacy behind a closed door, a curious Lady Belvedere peeped through the keyhole to see how the work was progressing
Apparently descended from a family of renowned stucco workers near Lake Como in northern Italy, he arrived in Ireland towards the end of the 18th century, probably around 1784 when he established his workshop in Dublin. Describing himself as an “Inlayer in Marble and Stucco Worker”, several sources cite his place of work being firstly at 22 Fleet Street in 1785 and at 38 Fleet Street from 1787-98.
Bossi specialised in the use of stucco and scagliola, a process where he applied a coloured paste inlay on to a white marble background. Apart from fireplaces, Bossi also designed and crafted Etruscan-style tabletops, one of which is located in Charlemont House or as it is more commonly known nowadays, The Hugh Lane Gallery.
For someone who now enjoys a big reputation for his work, very little about Bossi’s origin or indeed what became of him is known. Despite years of working in Ireland, no receipts or accounts for his work have been found. It is possible he married in Dublin and had a child here, but the date and place of his death is still unrecorded and his work appears to have come to an abrupt end in 1798.
In an essay on Irish Architectural and Decorative Studies in the Journal of the Irish Georgian Society, Conor O’Neill suggests that Bossi may have one of many itinerant craftsmen who plied their craft in Italy, Germany and Britain at that time. Bossi was reputedly very secretive about the way he went about his work and the techniques he used to achieve his results.
O’Neill relates an amusing anecdote about the time when Bossi was engaged in work in Belvedere House. As Bossi worked in privacy behind a closed door, a curious Lady Belvedere peeped through the keyhole to see how the work was progressing. Sensing her presence, Bossi blew powder through the keyhole which caught her in the eye causing her some discomfort.
Having exited Avondale House at the conclusion of our tour, the guide pointed out The Great Ride – a vast expanse of tree-lined meadow which sweeps down to the banks of the Avonmore river at the far end of the estate.
The undulating terrain, over a kilometre in length, was where the Parnell family rode out their horses but reading the account of the matches played in 1886, the description in the Freeman’s Journal of a tree-lined pitch on slightly rough ground adjacent to the Avonmore river was reminiscent of the scene there today.
The beautiful treetop walk through the estate provides wonderful views of the house and the surrounding Wicklow countryside. The walk culminates with a 38m-tall viewing tower which is accessed by a circular ramped boardwalk.
The viewing tower also contains another more modern great ride where a slide returns you the 38m to terra firma in a matter of seconds.
Unfortunately, the queue for this adventure was slightly too long and I took the more sensible option of retracing my steps back down the boardwalk.
