18/11/2020
Fantastic Irish Fanlights Armchair Tour Day 45: More Offaly
The second leg of the Fantastic Irish Fanlights Armchair Tour of County picks up where we last left off, the outskirts of Birr, and takes in a selection of the fanlights found in the south of the county.
The first glory is Drumbawn, Seefin, which has a wonderful series of graduated circles sitting inside a margin, an offspring of the much earlier Brendan House or Oxmantown House in Birr, holding seven circles instead of nine. Arched glazing in the doors and sidelights completes a beautiful composition. Crinkill, a former military village, is the setting for some fantastic fanlights. Williamsbrook, just north of the village, has a unique fanlight design. Two elliptical arches intersect in the centre with secondary bars swooping up to the top of the opening to form two triangular panes. It is visually striking and has never been encountered before. Beechpark, a stone's throw away, has a Classical doorcase with a simple spoked fanlight.
Corolanty, on the road to Shinrone, has a fine block-and-start doorcase hosting a cobweb fanlight with a double hub. Milltown Park, just south of Shinrone, has a simpler block-and-start doorcase with a curved switch-track fanlight that is most likely original to the mid eighteenth-century house.
Danganreagh House, almost on the border with County Tipperary, is a small house with an especially unusual fanlight: an elongated teardrop with etched acanthus and floral patterns on the glass. Teardrop designs are few and far between in County Offaly and, together with its margined sidelights, this is very fine example. Rathenny House, also near the border with County Tipperary, has a very fine elliptical cobweb fanlight whose fine ornaments are clearly picked out. The sidelights have the long-favoured repeat pattern of semi-circles holding quarries. All are housed within an elegant Doric doorcase but the removal of the render has revealed the structural brick work.
The doorcase of Myrtlegrove, near Dunkerrin, has quite a modernist flavour and features a camber-arched mouthorgan stretching over sidelights, all in excellent order. The castellated Busherstown House, not far from Moneygall in the very south of the county, has a slightly pointed switch-track fanlight in a very simple surround with no decoration whatsoever. Its gate lodge also has a simple doorcase with a perfect petal.
Swinging back northwards and our first destination is the little village of Kinnitty where we find Glen View and its unusual rectangular fanlight. Two central lenses are connected to a central quarry. So far, so usual, but here each lens and quarry is held at the top and bottom by vertical bars fronted with tiny paired fronds. Cloganmore House, a short distance west of the village, is now in use as an outbuilding. Its original doorway has a rectangular fanlight with two concave lozenges which, considering the declining social status of the house, is a remarkable survivor. Cadamstown House, north-east of Kinnitty, has a carved stone doorcase with a crisply-ornamented metal cobweb fanlight.
Winging our metaphorical way west to Banagher, near the border with County Galway, we pass Whigsborough House which has a combination cobweb-petal fanlight with a busy spoked hub and ovoid petals meeting a border of semi-circular loops.
Heading down Main Street, Banagher, in the direction of the River Shannon, the first fanlight of interest is the geometric rectangle at the Convent of La Sainte Union des Sacre Coeurs. A nearby house (1865) has a marvellous pedimented porch shading a spoked fanlight retaining may panes of handblown glass. The composition is like a dainty, miniature copy of an American Federal-era porch. Note that the middle band is made from a perforated strip. J.J. Nallen has recently been reconstructed as Banagher Town Centre but the curiously upbeat fanlight we photographed in 2004 has happily survived. Its necklace of petals looping around the hub is very unusual.
There are four interesting fanlights at the river end of Main Street. The first is a simple, but elegant petal while the second is an example of the local variation of the elliptical arch with spokes radiating from an elongated double hub. The sidelights have lovely geometric margins with little arched heads. The Royal Shannon, singled out by its distinctive bowed breakfront, has a Doric doorcase with a solid hub and spoke fanlight while a house across the street has cobweb curves at the base of its petals.
Cloghan is a small village with a good heritage of fanlights and a number are worthy of particular attention. The first, on the corner of Hill Street and Banagher Street, has a delightful cobweb with a double hub and ornamental middle band. The sidelights are a variation on the circle and quarry pattern. A nearby house has a simple spoked fanlight and margined sidelights with lots of handblown glass. The Gables, Castle Street, has two fanlights: a geometric-patterned rectangle over the shop door and one of the local patterns – an elliptical double hub and spoke – over the house door.
Strawberryhill House has been much reduced in size and its gabled façade, created when the original front was demolished, has an elongated switch-track fanlight in largely featureless doorcase. The Belmont Mills complex is found nearby and includes a miller's house with a simple hub and spoke.
Ferbane has a smattering of fanlights in its short main street. One is a good example of the local pattern: a broad spoked fanlight with a double hub. A modest single-storey house on the opposite side of the street has a good geometric rectangle. Saint Stanislaus Catholic College (1815-8), Rahan, on the road to Tullamore, was photographed many times in its heyday as a boarding school and novitiate. A photograph of the 1902 Men's Sodality Group shows the fanlight with a set of slender cobweb curves that have since been lost. It is reproduced courtesy of the Irish Jesuit Archives and Offaly Archives.
The exterior of Annaghmore House (1790), halfway between Kilcormac and Killeigh, gives no sign of the elaborate cobweb fanlight hidden inside its pilastered porch. Killeigh has a particularly interesting fanlit doorcase on the east side of Fair Green. The fanlight is a fine variation on the cobweb: a generous double hub punctured by stars and circling a floral ornament, and a string of border cobwebs looping twice between each spoke, with trails, the whole like a festoon. Like we saw at Rathenny House, this house would have been rendered to disguise the rubble masonry and utilitarian brick work.
Bloomville, off the road to Portarlington, is a lovely late eighteenth-century house whose fanlight has simple spokes with offset margin panes. Patrick Street is the best street for fanlights on the Offaly side of Portarlington. They are mainly simple spoked designs and a typical example is found at the parochial house. Moving east towards the River Barrow and there are several similar cobweb fanlights with a cobweb surrounding the hub. Inverness has a simple cobweb and circle-quarry sidelights in a fine bracketed doorcase. Blackstick Priory has lost most of the original features captured in a photograph in the Eason Collection including the impressive doorcase with cobweb fanlight and concave quarry sidelights [https://tinyurl.com/yybtwvuz]. 4 Patrick Street has an elegant petal with a double hub. The doorcase forms part of an unusual tripartite composition where the sidelights are completely separate windows. Each sidelight has a set of three lenses inside a margin: an unusual and very charming design!
We will conclude this leg of our tour of with a quick admiring glance at Bellydermot House, near Clonbullogue, where a simple doorcase houses a cobweb fanlight in a rectangle.
