“This is country house porn of the sweetest, most insinuating kind and will probably be a smash.”—World of Interiors

“An intimate glimpse of life inside ten wonderful Irish country houses.”— Min Hogg

The Irish Country House chronicles a remarkable group of houses and castles that have survived the vicissitudes of Ireland’s history and are still in the hands of their original families. From breakfront cabinets filled with generations of monogrammed heirloom china to canopy beds keeping the chill of an Irish winter at bay to cabbage-rose slip-covered sofas nestled under tall Gothic windows, this book takes the reader on a tour of these residences, many of which have never been published before, providing an intimate look at “a marvelous hotchpotch of rooms and decoration.”

Visually evocative, the specially commissioned photographs by James Fennell show inviting living rooms and tousled bedrooms, print-lined hallways and well-trampled mudrooms. Telling details capture the distinctive personalities of the owners: a red silk bell-pull against green floral wallpaper, a drawer full of two-hundred-year-old love letters, the curve of a wonderfully carved antique chair.

In their delightful text, the Knight of Glin and James Peill tell the tale of some of the more colorful inhabitants of these homes, both past and present. The houses are not the instant creation of trendy decorators – they have evolved over generations, furnished with heirlooms and cherished hand-me-downs, and exuding the mossy scent of peat fires and Irish setters just in from the rain. This is a book for lovers of Ireland, history, or decoration.

The complete list of houses included:

Birr Castle, County Offaly

Huntington Castle, County Carlow

Killruddery, County Wicklow

Burtown House, County Kildare

Tarbert House, County Kerry

Killadoon, County Kildare

Glin Castle, County Limerick

Clandeboye, County Down

Tullynally, County Westmeath

Lisnavagh, County Carlow

About the Contributor(s)

Desmond FitzGerald, Knight of Glin, was President of the Irish Georgian Society and a former Trustee of the National Gallery of Ireland.  He was Christie’s representative in Ireland and before that Deputy Keeper of the Furniture & Woodwork Department at the Victoria & Albert Museum. His publications include Ireland’s Painters and The Watercolours of Ireland (both with Anne Crookshank), Irish Furniture (with James Peill), and many articles on Irish architecture, gardens, and decorative arts. Until his death in 2011, he lived at Glin Castle, Co. Limerick.

James Peill is the curator of Goodwood House in West Sussex, England. He was formerly a Vice President of Christie’s where he was a specialist in the European Furniture Department.  He is the co-author (with the Knight of Glin) of Irish Furniture.

James Fennell is a photographer specializing in interiors, portraiture, fashion, and travel photography. His photographs have been published in Conde Nast Traveller, World of Interiors, Elle Décor, and Architectural Digest. His books include Vanishing Ireland: Further Chronicles of a Disappearing World, and The Irish Pub (all with Turtle Bunbury). He lives on the grounds of Burtown House, Co. Kildare.

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