Back to the future as Cork's Fota House reveals restored rooms

Thu, 24 Aug, 2023 - 07:49

Carol O’Callaghan

Cast your eyes around your home. Can you name its style? Unless it’s a new build, furnished with everything brand new, you probably have features and styling, even if it’s just simple references like vintage teacups on display, citing the provenance of your older property.

Martina Madden, right, collections co-ordinator, and Bryan Murphy, general manager, Fota House, Arboretum & Gardens.

It’s a topic close to the heart of Martina Madden, property museum standards programme of Ireland and collections co-ordinator at Fota House, Co Cork, whose specialised sourcing of furnishings reflects a period of over 250 years the house was occupied, rather than recreating a time capsule of the 1820s when Fota was remodelled from a hunting lodge to a permanent family residence for the Smith-Barry family.

Last occupied by Dorothy Bell (née Smith-Barry), in the early 1970s, it’s now in the hands of the Irish Heritage Trust which undertakes painstaking work to conserve and restore this historic architectural gem.

Before: The library prior to renovation. Originally the music room, it later became the library as seen here prior to extensive renovations and conservation after the discovery of dry rot in 2016.

“Sometimes things come up at auction and we try to buy them but the main aim is to have things associated with the Regency, Victorian, and Edwardian periods up to the 1950s and 1960s when it was lived in,” says Martina.

Serving cloches — Fota House originals — sold for around €30,000 in New York recently, outside the reach of Irish Heritage Trust’s budget.

During: When the library was gutted and returned to the original brick-wall construction, a previously boarded-up window was discovered at the end of the room.

How lovely it would have been to bring them home, but Martina also tells of items returned to the house by generous philanthropy.

“Dorothy Bell was asset-rich and cash-poor,” she explains. “We know she paid a Cork solicitor named Emerson in furniture. Someone else then bought it for Fota.”

The library, newly restored. It was originally the music room when Fota House was remodelled in 1820.

The policy of sourcing to reflect the timeline of occupancy is evident also. “Someone might donate a piece from a period the house was lived in, but it wouldn’t have belonged to the house,” says Martina, citing the Royal Doulton dinner service laid out on a lengthy table in an equally lengthy dining room.

“It’s from the 1920s and was donated by a family who lived in Vailima on Model Farm Road, which is now demolished.”

Portraits feature in the dining room at Fota House, including portraits of the Smith-Barry family ancestors.

From the walls above, austere Smith-Barry ancestors in ruffed collars look on from gilded frames, dating from pre-Fota House times when the family, then simply called Barry, lived in nearby Barryscourt Castle.

Although Fota’s original art collection was sold and dispersed in the 1970s, the art now in the house includes the collection of a Cork businessman Richard Wood, bought by another Cork family, the McCarthys, and donated to Fota.

It’s in tribute to the family that a newly-restored grand room, originally the music room, is named the McCarthy Library. I’m surveying it with Martina and the general manager of Fota House Arboretum & Gardens, Bryan Murphy.

Home Q&A: How do I keep my old mantel clock ticking?

Martina is showing me the spaces that have been restored over recent years, with the McCarthy Library specifically taking seven years due to the complications of sorting out the dry rot and then decorating (2016-2023).

Fota’s ceilings are part of an ongoing restoration and conservation programme of the grand rooms and stairwell.

Here we move beyond the more ephemeral tableware and furniture to the bricks and mortar of the house, and the challenges faced in maintaining historic buildings. “In 2016, dry rot burst through the panelling,” Martina says. “The room had to be stripped back to the dry lining, floors pulled up, even in the hallway.”

Not that you’d know it, as the only evidence of what became a six-year project to restore the McCarthy Library’s structural health is some brickwork detail to illustrate the room’s built history.

But it’s Fota’s ceilings that are stars of the ongoing and meticulous restoration and conservation programme of the grand rooms and stairwell.

The drawing room stands out particularly see the photos on the bottom, left and above, centre, main, although it’s easy to be distracted by the rich blue hue on the walls (Farrow & Ball is the preferred paint brand as its heritage colours are in keeping with the originals in the house).

it’s easy to be distracted by the rich blue hue on the walls, but look up and you'll see the intricate plasterwork by talented stuccodores.

And look up at the intricate plasterwork by talented stuccodores, made even more beautiful by a painted pattern which may have been a feature of some of the other rooms also, according to Smith-Barry descendants. “We’re always trying to answer questions about the details of the house,” says Martina.

“Dorothy Bell’s grandson came to visit recently. He remembers when he was young sitting in the dining room and thinks his grandmother didn’t like the ceiling and painted over it.”

The portraits and fireplace in the dining room.

The prospect of unearthing an original decorative feature is exciting, but an investigation would need significant funding. Maybe a kindly philanthropist out there would like to uncover another layer of Fota’s decorative history?

The general public can play its part, too, in piecing together the historic jigsaw. If you have an item that came from Fota House, (possibly in lieu of a payment from Dorothy?), the team would love to hear about it and document the story.