CLASSICAL
CREATIVITY ON THE EDGE OF EUROPE:
The Country House in Northern Ireland
District
of Columbia
New York
Los Angeles
San Francisco
Once the focus of Irish social and political life, country houses in
Northern Ireland
remain a surviving testimony to the wealth and culture of the families
who inhabited them.
As
Irish local politics caused fluctuating fortunes, power and ownership
were expressed in the
great houses-through architecture, collections and the design of the
landscape parks.
Three extraordinary 18th-century houses and their great families - the
Coles at Florence Court,
the Bangors at Castle Ward; and the Bellmores at Castle Coole-are examples
of the uniquely Irish
response to the development of the Palladian ideal and the introduction
of the Gothic style in Northern Ireland.
This
illustrated lecture will look at some of the 18th- and 19th-century
houses in the care of the
National Trust and explore their architectural development and their
magnificent collections-
including Florence Court's superb examples of 18th-century Irish plasterwork
and Irish furniture;
Castle Coole's lavish 19th-century furnishings; and the famous gardens
at
Mount Stewart planted in the 1920s by Edith, Lady Londonderry.
