Opportunities to see a substantial collection of Irish Georgian furniture occur so seldom in this country that there should be keen interest in the exhibition of such work being presented for two days at Dublin's Merrion Hotel next week.

The show features 32 items and is organised by Johnston Antiques, which presented a similar event at Newman House two years ago. Once again, the exhibition is accompanied by a handsome colour catalogue, on this occasion carrying a substantial introductory essay written by Desmond Fitz-Gerald, the Knight of Glin, who notes that the Johnstons - like so many other dealers today - have to source the best examples of Irish furniture in the United States, to which so much of it was exported during the first half of the 20th century. Desmond Fitz-Gerald is particularly interesting on the origins of distinctively Irish design, noting how this was primarily inspired by a proto-nationalist movement at the start of the Georgian age, when this country enjoyed more settled circumstances than it had for some time.

While some of the finest craftsmen employed during the period, such as the Tabary family, were of French Huguenot origin, they were encouraged by a number of patrons and writers to produce work distinct in character from that manufactured on the other side of the Irish Sea. Fitz-Gerald notes, for example, that in 1720 Dean Swift published, albeit anonymously, his pamphlet entitled A Proposal for the universal Use of Irish Manufacture in Cloaths and Furniture of Houses etc. utterly Rejecting and Renouncing Every Thing wearable that comes from England. Within two decades, another keen pamphleteer, Samuel Madden, had published a number of documents such as the Reflections and Resolutions Proper for the Gentlemen of Ireland, as to their Conduct for the Service of their Country as Landlords etc. of 1738.

Thanks to the advocacy of these men, as well as that of Bishop Berkeley and Thomas Prior among others, a school of Irish design started to evolve and the results are to be seen clearly in the Johnston Antiques exhibition. Among the most overtly-Irish items on show is a mahogany tea or silver table with dish top. Dating from around 1740, among the features clearly identifying its country of origin are the elaborately carved frieze centred on a shell flanked by birds and foliage, and the carved cabriole legs terminating in hairy paw feet.

Very similar decoration is found also on a slightly earlier mahogany-frame upholstered high-back settee; here again, the frieze is ornamented with shells and the legs conclude in paw feet and, in addition, the carved arms scroll into heads of birds. This love of ornament taking its form from nature is typically Irish and might, without stretching the imagination too far, be said to be a continuation of the decorative work seen in Celtic carving and manuscript illumination.

The most charming of the pieces included in this exhibition almost without exception come from the second quarter of the 18th century, when furniture of this kind was most popular: a carved giltwood and gesso marble-topped side table from circa 1740, for example, or a mirror also executed in giltwood and gesso and made a decade earlier. Especially impressive in terms of the meticulousness work involved in its production is a yew wood bureau cabinet dating from circa 1740, its two mirror doors concealing an elaborate interior fitted with pigeon holes and drawers below an arch-top pediment.

And, finally, among the other items of note is a mahogany corner cupboard of the 1730s, its four panelled doors surmounted by a swan-neck pediment with carved rosettes.

The Exhibition of Irish Georgian Furniture takes place in the Wellesley Room of the Merrion Hotel, Dublin next Wednesday and Thursday from 2 to 8 p.m. each day. For further information, contact Johnston Antiques at 01-4732384.