Owners of old properties understand that they are merely custodians of their homes as the bricks and mortar will outlast their tenure. Or as Vita Sackville-West, author, garden designer and paramour of Virginia Woolf, put it: “A museum is a dead thing; a house which is still the home of men and women is a living thing which has not lost its soul.”
Every generation leaves a little legacy in a period pile and it becomes part of the fabric of the home. For Donaguile House, a six-bedroom residence in Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny, its owner Jane Willoughby leaves behind murals she painted on the walls of the conservatory. A talented artist and muralist, who studied under the late Peter Johnson – one of Ireland’s leading interior designers for more than 30 years – Willoughby’s talents were commissioned for large-scale schemes in some of the country’s noted stately homes, including Straffan House, Mount Juliet and Martinstown House.
She purchased Donaguile House with her husband, John, in 2017 for €575,000, according to the Property Price Register. Back then, the late-Georgian/early-Victorian pile was home to artist Polly Minette and her husband, Ivan. “Polly left me a piece of art that now hangs in the diningroom. Not only is it an original work, but the material is paper which she made from plant fibres from the garden in Donaguile,” Willoughby says. It will come with the house, alongside Willoughby’s muted murals which have echoes of Gustavian interiors, the Swedish style based on symmetry, decoration and proportion.
Despite extending to 635sq m (6,835sq ft) including a two-bedroom annexe, this home doesn’t feel overly large as it is long but only one room deep. More comfortable in size rather than of mammoth proportions, rooms have a sense of laid-back elegance; a place you’d kick off your shoes and curl up with a good book in front of the fire.
When Willoughby purchased Donaguile, the intention was to move from the family home in Dún Laoghaire, but eight years on that dream has not quite come to fruition due to the needs of the family. Donaguile has been used as a short-term rental and recently the family held a wedding there. “It was really beautiful as we had a tepee on the site of an old tennis court (now a lawn) and they got married under the gazebo covered in Clematis montana in the recent sunshine,” Willoughby says.
What will appeal about this six-bedroom house is its location at the edge of the town, or as Willoughby puts it, “roll-down-the-hill distance” to the local for a pint. Despite the surrounding tree cover giving the feel that you’re in the middle of the countryside, it’s the best of both worlds as you can walk to get the newspaper, or indeed a pint, within a few minutes.
It lies on a manageable two-acre site, with a superb walled potager garden where there is everything from brassicas, edible grapes and an abundance of other fruits, including some heritage apple trees. Centred by the gazebo, where the recent nuptials were celebrated, and where a lovely Magnolia stellata is currently in bloom, the house was featured on RTÉ’s Home of the Year in 2019 and made an appearance in House and Home magazine.
One of the loveliest rooms is the kitchen, where old Georgian shutters and doors have been repurposed, making it entirely unique. There’s also an Aga that has cooked bounties from the garden since the early 1900s. Since converted to kerosene from anthracite, in a twist of fate, the house was once home to the Wandesford family who owned local coal mines. The black stuff was mined here for three centuries and the town now has a museum dedicated to the fuel.
With six bedrooms, four reception rooms and a magical potager garden, the Ber-exempt house close to the town and only 20 minutes from Kilkenny for a plethora of arts and entertainment, is for sale through Savills, seeking €950,000.
