An Irishwoman's Diary

IN THE summer of 1976 Countess Ann Griffin Bernstorff of Berkeley Forest, New Ross, Co Wexford went to an auction of house contents belonging to a family called Hayden in Tipperary. The object of her desire was a rare and valuable 18th-century Spanish automata, a mechanical doll that had been given as a present from the King of Spain to his Irish governess.

A well-known painter and collector, Bernstorff has always been interested in antique dolls, seeing them not as mere playthings, but as idealised images of human desire and womanhood of their time. “Adults made them and bought them so what you are seeing is a very adult exercise,” she says.

In the event she was outbid at the auction, but came home instead with an exquisite l8th-century dress of Spitalfields silk, delicately hand-brocaded with sprigs of rosebuds and in perfect condition. It would have taken at least three months to make and would have cost the equivalent of some €10,000 at the time, an indication of the family’s wealth and status. Thus began a private collection of mostly 18th-century costume that built up over the years to include exceptionally fine and everyday items, many of them Irish. The collection eventually opened to the public as The Berkeley Costume and Toy Museum in 1993, displayed in two upstairs rooms in Berkeley Forest, itself of historical interest as the ancestral home of the philosopher George Berkeley.

Since then it has become one of Wexford’s private tourist attractions, but last month thanks to the efforts of Mary Heffernan of the OPW, it transferred to a palatial new home in Dublin’s Rathfarnham Castle. Here in the 18th-century neo-classical interior restored by the OPW the collection not only has a spacious and spectacular setting, but is accessible to a wider audience which now has a reason to visit the renowned Castle other than to linger in its tearoom or playground.

Originally built to protect Dublin from warring clans in Wicklow and the earliest “fortified house” in Ireland, the present building goes back to Elizabethan times when it was the home of Archbishop Adam Loftus, first Lord Chancellor of Ireland and first Provost of Trinity College. The Loftus family retained ownership until 1723 when the profligate Duke of Wharton who inherited it through his wife, the heiress Lucy Loftus, was forced to sell to repay his debts. Speaker Conolly bought the house for the hefty sum of £62,000, but never lived there, preferring to remain in Castletown.

In 1769, however, the Loftus family returned and it was Henry Loftus, Earl of Ely who inherited the vast estate and fortune and started to make his considerable mark on it. There’s a huge portrait of him in the ballroom, a man in his prime, proud, confident, sumptuously apparelled, master of all he surveys.

It was this “lover of splendour and magnificence” who was responsible for remodelling the ancestral home using the leading architects of the day and employing the prominent portrait painter Angelica Kauffman to execute some of the decorative work and family portraits. One, of the Earl and Countess with his niece, the society beauty Dolly Monroe hangs in the National Gallery. Pictured to the right of the painting is an eastern slave who was gifted to the Earl with ostriches and apparently used to ride the birds around the gardens for the amusement of guests.

"To describe the place particularly would fill a large volume" wrote the antiquarian and amateur artist Austin Cooper in 1781. "The rooms are finished in a most superb manner, all profusely filled with elegant paintings, china, vases, urns etc." The Post Chaise Companion Through Irelandof 1797 reported that the "fine and extensive demesnes contained a remarkable fine greenhouse for exotic plants and an aviary containing a variety of curious birds." The aviary, exotic plants, old masters and fine furniture have long gone, but the interior décor, plasterwork, Doric columns and stained Venetian glass remain intact and breathtaking.

After the Union, Rathfarnham Castle “became a white elephant . . . a symbol of the increasing political irrelevance of the Elys”, according to APW Malcomson’s history of the Loftus family.”

Henry’s descendants gradually lost interest and the place was described as abandoned, its collection dispersed to other Loftus properties in Wexford and Fermanagh. It was purchased by the Blackburnes in 1847 who in turn sold it to the Jesuits in 1913.In the early 1980s it was declared a National Monument and purchased for the nation by the OPW in 1987 when Dublin County Council acquired the grounds.

With its newly limewashed exterior, the Castle looks fresh and inviting these days and there are ambitious plans to expand the costume and toy museum to include 20th-century wedding dresses and other fashions.

Currently running in tandem with the collection is 21st Century Icons, an exhibition from Kilkenny curated by Ann Mulrooney of contemporary jewellery by 21 of Ireland's most creative and innovative makers who have revisited the torc for present day neckpiece inspiration. Rumour has it that there's also an "unnerving ghost" in the Castle clanking around with his sword looking for his ladylove. . .