Desmond Guinness

9 results

Doneraile Court, Co Cork.
State millions and good memories: Bringing a grand house back to life

Getting into Doneraile Court involves climbing past the fallen rim of a balustrade which once enclosed the orangery where diarist and diplomat Harold (...)

I The door knocker of the Headquarters of the Irish Georgian Society on South William Street. Photograph: Cyril Byrne/The Irish Times
1950s Dublin: saving grand old houses from the politicians who hated them

It was a brief letter to The Irish Times from Desmond Guinness that got the ball rolling. Writing in July 1957, he lamented that the old Georgian Soci(...)

Grace Jones: The documentary ‘Grace Jones: Bloodlight & Bami’ is out on Friday. Photograph: Bryan O’Brien
‘I'd many near escapes of the brutal 1970s education system. I was lucky’

For two nights in September 2016, it seemed as though there were two types of people in Dublin. Those who were lucky enough to land a ticket to one of(...)

Annesbrook house
Annesbrook House: a manor made fit for a king who never graced its halls

Heritage runs deep through the land around Annesbrook House outside Duleek in Co Meath. A Bronze Age burial site was discovered in the early 1900s and(...)

Times past: ‘Speaker’s Clock’ that plays ‘God Save the Queen’ was previously on loan to Leinster House
‘God Save the Queen’ clock sells for €115,000

There was standing room only in the saleroom at the Killashee House Hotel in Naas, Co Kildare, on Tuesday when Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers sold the conte(...)

Interior of Furness House: both the house itself and its contents are for sale
Contents of Guinness family home go on sale at auction

Patrick Guinness, the brewing dynasty heir and president of the Irish Georgian Society, is to sell the contents of his Co Kildare home, the 13-bedroo(...)

One of a number of surviving designs for the front elevation of Leinster House in Dublin by Richard Castle
Around the block: Original architectural drawings on display

Lovers of architecture and history will revel in a new summer exhibition opening this week at the Irish Architectural Archive on Merrion Square. It wi(...)

Patrick Guinness and Garech Browne at the unveiling of the statue of entrepreneur and philanthropist Arthur Guinness in his home town of Celbridge, Co Kildare, which has been erected by Celbridge Tidy Towns, with the support of Diageo. Photograph: Naoise Culhane Photography
Guinness was good for you, says family as Arthur statue unveiled

He came in for some flak last week but yesterday was the real Arthur’s Day, when a statue of Arthur Guinness was unveiled on Celbridge’s main street i(...)

As the Sunday Independent’s social diarist, Trevor Danker wrote accounts of meeting Frank Sinatra for dinner in New York and of having a beer with the young Ben Dunne.
Obituary: Trevor Danker

Trevor Danker, who has died aged 74, was for many years a social columnist with the Sunday Independent (...)