The Victorian era was an enormously complex period of decoration which has been determined in our eyes by years of prejudicial judgement. Some people are fanatics but in general it is hard to describe the characteristics of Victorian decoration with the same enthusiasm as that levelled at previous or even subsequent periods. Why is this?
Almost universally in England and in urban parts of Ireland it was a period of rapid growth, mechanisation and house building. The heavy machinery of the Industrial Revolution and mass production stifled Regency playfulness and eccentricity. The escapist whims of the Prince Regent and Napoleon were replaced by machine-made bricks, Roman cement, iron girders and from 1845, ubiquitous plate glass. Individualism, local characteristics, hand craftsmanship were replaced by goods forged in one part of the Empire and delivered by rail, finished and ready for use, in another.
The increase in the pace of life led to a rampant eclecticism in decorative styles: Gothic, Greek, Italianate, Baroque, Elizabethan, "Jacobethan", Venetian Gothic, as well as revivals of French styles from all periods. So disparate was taste that one writer commented in 1840, "the present age is distinguished from all others in having no style that can properly be called its own". Perhaps escapism through pastiche had never been so relevant. This was no aristocratic whim but the fervent desire of the middle classes to indulge in fantasy to obliterate the scars of industrialisation . The problem with much of this Victorian decoration was not the dream but the product : quality suffered in mass production and new component materials. However exciting they may have been initially, the novelty of steam printed lincrusta wallpaper, chemical dyed densely patterned floral prints and encaustic tiles has not lasted.
Particularly in England, rich industrialists forgot their humble origins and expended fortunes building country houses which still had cachet despite reform acts limiting the power of landlords. The architect George Gilbert Scott wrote of the Victorian gentleman: "he has been placed by providence in a position of authority and dignity and no false modesty should deter him from expressing this in the character of his home". Hence the baronial piles, the sprawling ground plans and the vast households where having 50 servants was not unusual. These houses were virtuously divided between male and female "zones". The hall, library, dining and billiards rooms were clearly male and the drawing, sittingrooms and boudoirs, female. Below stairs, the extended domains of the cook and butler were similarly segregated.
Despite the economic hardships of the mid-century in Ireland there was enormous urban expansion; an 1821 map of Dublin shows the city limits lying well within the encircling ring of the canals. Thirty years later, the city had increased considerably and spread south eastwards especially along the coast. Most houses were of a conservative "Georgian" character and their decoration a coarser and more elaborate version of that of the Regency period. As Maurice Craig has pointed out, it wasn't until after 1860 that polychrome brick, cable mouldings, Venetian door-cases, bay windows and plate glass replaced the traditional Dublin house. Surprisingly, not many country houses escaped some form of Victorian make-over and not a few were extensively remodelled and extended between 1840-1870. Some like Rossmore Park, Co Monaghan, ultimately encompassed a whole range of neo medieval styles, others like Castleboro, Co Waterford, were built in a heavy classical manner, aping that of the previous century. The Gothic style, always considered to be romantic, was used to great effect in the dramatically sited Kylemore Abbey and the castles of Ashford and Glenveagh. Due to the subsequent 20th century reaction against Victorian style, the decoration of very few of these survives intact.
An exception was Lyrath in Co Kilkenny, where it remained virtually unaltered until its sale in the early 1990s. The earlier house was more than doubled in size by the architect John McCurdy, between 1861-74 for Charles Wheeler Cuffe and his bride Pauline Villiers Stuart. What made it revealing was that it was a Victorian house that defied criticism. It had been almost entirely filled with sumptuous furnishings bought at the 1871 Paris Exhibition. The component parts should have induced depression: grained woodwork, embossed wallpaper and cluttered "Louis" reproduction furniture. In fact it was glorious: huge spaces, pale grey distempered walls, drawingrooms hung with delicate white-and-gold wallpapers lit by huge curved plate glass windows.
Its success lay in the overlay of Wheeler-Cuffe furnishings amidst the Victoriana: some were earlier, as well as some extraordinary later Edwardian Burmese objects. The house and collection had a panache and vigour - characteristics not usually associated with the period.
Refreshed by the memory of this house, a commentary on Victorian Irish interiors can ignore the dour and concentrate instead on some remarkable spaces : the brightly stencilled ceilings and jewelled stained glass of Humewood, the billowing neo Baroque plasterwork of Markree, the Pugin-inspired wallpaper at Tullynally and the now all too scarce pinky/white-and-gold patterned wallpapers that once graced more modest drawingrooms throughout the country. The sense of confidence that accompanied most aspects of Victorian life made its decoration seemingly impregnable. The confusion of styles and the clutter of knick knacks increased in the last decades of the century. Change was coming however and throughout the period, reformers like A W N Pugin and John Ruskin railed against pastiche and mediocrity. They promoted Christian, medieval styles which they believed were morally uplifting, true to their materials, hand-crafted and faithful to the past. Both men, united in their opposition to Victorian styles sang rather different tunes, but although much copied and often debased, the sincerity of their message was effective. Ultimately their teachings led to the work of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement which itself paved the way for 20th century modernism.
