Great Irish Households

The value of inventories in charting how houses were arranged, furnished and used is now widely appreciated. Typically, the listings and valuations were occasioned by the death of an owner and the consequent need to deal with testamentary dispositions. That was not always so. The inventory for Castlecomer House, Co. Kilkenny, for example, was drawn up to make a claim following the house's devastation in the 1798 uprising. Mostly hitherto unpublished, the inventories chosen give new-found insights into the lifestyle and taste of some of the foremost families of the day. Above stairs, the inventories show the evolving collecting habits and tastes of eighteenth-century patrons across Ireland and how the interiors of great town and country houses were arranged or responded to new materials and new ideas. The meticulous recording of the contents of the kitchen and scullery likewise sheds light on life below stairs. Itemized equipment required for the brewhouse, dairy, stables, garden and farmyard reflects the at times significant scale of the communities the houses supported and the remarkable degree of self-sufficiency at some of the demesnes. A comprehensive index facilitates access to the myriad items forming the inventories, while the books listed at three of the houses are tentatively identified in separate appendices. A foreword together with short preambles to the inventories set the households in their historical context. Illustrated with contemporary engravings of the houses and with portraits of the owners of the time, the inventories will appeal to country-house visitors, historians of interiors, patronage, collecting and material culture as well as to scholars, curators, collectors, creative designers, film directors, bibliographers, lexicographers and novelists. The eighteenth century is the period onto which the Knight of Glin directed his penetrating gaze as art historian. The book is dedicated to his memory.

“[The book] will be an invaluable and rich source of information for scholars and I know I will be using it on a regular basis.”

'A box of geeky delights, certainly, but also a fabulous (one might even say indispensable) source for the scholarly study of the Irish country house . . .'-- Adrian Tinniswood, The Critic; "[T]his collection is a cornucopia of information, and while its primary audience will be scholars and curators, there is plenty to be gleaned from the listings for anyone interested in historic interiors'.-- C. Ridgway, Journal of the History of Collections; 'This is a beautiful production - elegantly laid out, printed and bound into a neat volume, with a fine dust jacket . . . It covers a fascinating subject, which brings us back in time and throws much light on how people lived.'-- Peter Pearson, Irish Arts Review; '[A]cross the span of some 120 years and 18 inventories it is possible to see how the decoration and design of affluent Irish households changed.'-- Robert O'Byrne, Apollo; ''-- James Rothwell, National Curator, Decorative Arts, National Trust; 'Historic household inventories recording the contents of rooms are an essential documentary tool for understanding the use and appearance of houses in the distant past. For anyone with a serious interest in Irish Georgian houses, this collection is an essential work of reference.'-- Kate Green, Country Life; 'All in all this is a model production which will be of permanent use to students of Irish houses, and indeed of those throughout Great Britain'.--Simon Swynfen Jervis, Furniture History Society Newsletter

Tessa Murdoch, FSA, is an independent scholar. After forty years as curator at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Museum of London she is working with the British Museum on a programme for Britain and Ireland to mark the bicentenary of Catholic Emancipation in 2029. Her work on Huguenot refugee art and culture, Europe Divided: Huguenot Refugee Art and Culture, was published in 2021. Her engagement with inventories was inspired by researching the archives of the dukes of Montagu for Boughton House: The English Versailles (1992); and under her editorship Noble Households: Eighteenth-Century Inventories of Great English Houses was published in 2006; Toby Barnard, FBA, is emeritus fellow in history at Hertford College, University of Oxford. A specialist in the political, social and cultural histories of Ireland and England, c. 1600-1800, his books include: Making the Grand Figure: Lives and Possessions in Ireland, 1641-1770 (2004); and Guide to the Sources for the History of Material Culture in Ireland (2005).

• Toby Barnard is one of the pre-eminent historians of eighteenth-century Ireland Inventories, most of them published here for the first time, are presented in a highly readable layout Extensive index makes the goods and chattels listed in the inventories easily accessible Full glossary is linked to the index Companion volume to Noble Households: Eighteenth-Century Inventories of Great English HousesThe value of inventories in charting how houses were arranged, furnished and used is now widely appreciated. Typically, the listings and valuations were occasioned by the death of an owner and the consequent need to deal with testamentary dispositions. That was not always so. The inventory for Castlecomer House, Co. Kilkenny, for example, was drawn up to make a claim following the house's devastation in the 1798 uprising. Mostly hitherto unpublished, the inventories chosen give new-found insights into the lifestyle and taste of some of the foremost families of the day. A comprehensive index facilitates access to the myriad items within the inventories, while the books listed at three of the houses are tentatively identified in separate appendices. A foreword, together with preambles to the inventories, sets the households in their historical context. The book will appeal to historians of interiors, patronage, collecting and material culture, as well as to scholars, curators, collectors, creative designers, film directors, bibliographers, lexicographers and historical novelists.

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