The restoration of Rathcoursey House threw up a number of surprises, as the Georgian home gave way to layers of earlier architecture and designs, revealing a number of stages in the house's history. Elizabeth Field writes.
It's a warm early-autumn afternoon and honey bees are buzzing in Beth Hallinan's walled herb garden. A line of ducks waddles lazily along the driveway toward the orchard, while, past tubs of agapanthus lilies framing a rose-coloured smallish Georgian manor house, the light dances down a sloping meadow to the East Ferry Estuary. Beyond lie the Great Island's golden fields and an expanse of sky.
Inside the house, you can sit in the grey-green-and-red-toned drawing room and enjoy the view through graceful Georgian sash windows, thumb through some of Beth's well-worn books (The Wild Garden, by William Robinson in1903, is a favourite) or admire her collection of work by Irish women artists. Upstairs, there are six comfortably furnished bedrooms, and some quirky touches. A huge bathroom features an imposing bathtub, fireplace ornamented with a stuffed kudu head, burgundy velvet chaise longue, a couple of scuba goggles hanging from a door, a gramophone, and, of course, that gorgeous westward-facing view.
"I wanted to draw out the tranquillity of the house so that people could come and feel their own calm and tranquillity," says Beth, describing her motivation for buying and restoring Rathcoursey House and its 35-acre grounds in Ballinacurra, Co Cork, in 1998. Born nearby, but having spent her adulthood as a professional cook in England and Ireland, while raising four children, Beth's return home seems personally significant. "My intention, as an elderly woman on her own," - she is 63 - "was to create a house for family and friends, and to take in visitors to help pay for the gardens." Notwithstanding its beauty, the property appealed to Beth on historical grounds. The land was settled in 1592 by a member of the Smyth (sometimes spelled Smith) family, sea captains who came to Cork in the employ of Queen Elizabeth I. The original house was built in the 17th century, and expanded in 1773 by James Tynte Smyth. Beth suspects that the site may have once been a Celtic fort because of its excellent position for defence of the estuary. Its name, Rathcoursey, derives from "rath" (Celtic fort) and de Coursey, a powerful Norman family who in the 13th century owned huge areas of what is now Northern Ireland.
Having received extensive land grants from the Queen, in return for their naval service, the Smyths soon added farming to their portfolio.
Their lineage reflects a mix of earthiness and gentility. They were distant relations of the Earl of Essex, and one of their members had married the poet Edmund Spenser. According to local histories, one John Tynte Smyth was roasted on a gridiron in the yard of Rathcoursey in 1610 by robbers from Cloyne, while another family member allegedly piloted the ship that carried Napoleon to St Helena in 1815. Again, possibly apocryphally, one of the Smyth sea captains kept a parrot in the kitchen, which shouted "Shag the King" - illustrating the mixed loyalties so typical of the Anglo-Irish of those times. It all could have come out of a Somerville and Ross novel.
The comfortable, but not grand, house was a wreck when Beth found it.
Shutters were hanging loose, ceilings were missing, and dry rot and rising damp had caused extensive damage. "Our biggest job was stopping the moisture, curing problems that resulted from the moisture and doing cosmetic work," says restoration builder Alan Moroney.
Nevertheless, it was an exciting job because so much of the original house remained intact. "What gives the warmth here are the chunks missing, differences in texture in a wall, effects that just happen, which you can't consciously create," says Alan. "I firmly believe in minimal intervention. If it isn't broken, don't fix it. You want the house to be able to tell its story."
As in many restorations, the bulk of Beth's money was spent on unseen structural work. It was a learning process all the way.
Alan recounts the discovery of several six-foot-long slate slabs under the kitchen's concrete floor - a 17th-century building method designed (erroneously) to prevent damp. He moved the stones outdoors to create a flat "apron" around the western exposure of the house, while replacing the concrete with old quarry tiles. Then there was the massive piece of 17th-century ship's panelling - marked "S" and "P" for starboard and port - discovered inside a supporting wall. Its removal necessitated taking the front door off its hinges.
The exterior lime-wash, a period formulation in which powdered pigment is mixed into a coating solution and applied layer by layer, enables a building to "breathe", says Alan. It's best to enlist an expert when embarking on such projects, because an innocent mistake in the formulation could result in severe damage to the house. (The Irish Georgian Society at www.irish-architecture.com/igs lists craftsmen skilled in traditional building techniques.)
Sometimes practicality informed Beth's aesthetic during the restoration. After stripping off 57 layers of paint and paper from the kitchen's thick plaster walls, she and Alan decided to leave the mottled indigo and ochre-stained surfaces as they were - soft and organic looking, with the names of Beth's seven grandchildren now stencilled in strategic places.
On the other hand, Beth was determined not to move an elaborate double door with fanlight from the front hall to the drawing room. In typical Georgian style, high ornamentation was intermixed with simpler architraves and mouldings - according to where the owner wanted to create an impression of extravagance.
The local workers learned a lot on this job, too. Accustomed to large-scale projects where quick, fast work is done with a crowbar, they were introduced to labour-intensive conservation tasks done with paintbrushes, small chisels and trowels.
Initially dubious, "they appreciated how the historical value was retained when they saw the end result", says Alan.
If Beth had her way, she'd spend all her time in the gardens. (She has no gardener, and only occasional help.) Consistent with her "wild and romantic" sensibility, she likes roses that climb up trees, rambling rector, banks of white lilac and mauve philadelphus (mock orange), "rivers" of yellow spring bulbs, and grassy paths that lead the eye to hidden gardens. An avid seed-saver, she rarely bothers to prune plants in the two mixed beds and her enormous herb garden, instead, letting the seeds fall to the ground. This method takes plants longer to grow, she observes, but "it's so thrilling".
One of her greatest accomplishments has been the planting of 5,000 trees on the property - primarily beech, Irish and English oak, chestnut, ash, fruit, and other deciduous woodland specimens. In an odd coincidence, Beth learned recently that a widow of one of the Smyth sea captains had also planted 5,000 trees on the grounds in 1858. The woman had been raised in Rosehill, a tiny Georgian house in Ballinacurra, where Beth was born.
Which brings the cycle full-circle. Considering her future, Beth is currently renovating an 85-foot-long hayloft in one of Rathcoursey's early 18th-century outbuildings. Complete with a smooth new wooden floor, recycled American pitch pine beams, and soon-to-come triple west-facing windows to catch the light, the space could be a perfect spot for a yoga retreat - or for Beth to retire when she is no longer able or willing to manage Rathcoursey House. "I dream it up as I go along", she says.
Rathcoursey House, Ballinacurra, Co Cork, is open to guests all year round. Tel 021-4613418