Bonny Ballyfin – And A Ghostly Gothic Haunt

Travel Editor Neil Sowerby completes his Irish jaunt with a cosseted stay in a fairytale mansion, an intrusion on a nightmare setting and somewhere in between a pub lost in time...

THIS is a tale of two great beauties. One a well-formed Regency belle, given a gorgeous makeover and attracting well-heeled globetrotters; the other a tormented Gothic wreck, existing in the shadows and luring mainly film crews.

The  Library at Ballyfin; below, Charleville with its Gothic menace

The first building is Ballyfin Demesne, among the most amazing places I have ever stayed in; the second, the equally amazing Charleville Forest Castle, near Tullamore. Please visit, but you wouldn’t find rest in its haunted turrets, believe me. The pair are under 20 miles apart and both celebrate an Ireland apart from all that commercialised Craic and the Celtic Tiger crash.

Spooky Charleville later. We went on a whim; had to sidle our way in, almost. But we were invited to Ballyfin. It’s an upmarket hotel with 13 bedrooms and two suites, yet it feels like you are the weekend guest of an eccentric chatelaine with, for once, the taste to match the money.

The Demesne’s 600 acres of parkland are snuggled away in Laois, a county unencumbered with spectacular scenery. Even the much-heralded Slieve Bloom Mountains are more like desultory foothills compared with the craggy wonders out to the West. The bright lights of Kilkenny, Waterford and eventually Cork city are down the N7 and few tourists stop en route. We did, on our way to Ballyfin, to visit an old friend – Morrissey’s in Abbeyleix.

Morrissey's; below, its timeless interior (with telly)

This pub was run by the late Paddy Mulhall for decades until he sold it in 2004. The interior has barely changed since we last visited 20 years ago. On that occasion a real live peacock flounced in through the door to the glee of our infant daughters.

It can’t have been that much different when young Paddy  arrived in 1934 as an apprentice to his uncles, the eponymous Morrisseys, whose family first ran it as a grocery store in 1775. Today it’s still the same mad melange of shop paraphernalia – from sweet jars to a bacon slicer – alongside every pre-digital example of Guinness advertising ever created. Theme park, national treasure Ireland, yes, but when it’s this authentic (and serving stout) I don’t mind.

We slid into an oaken booth by a primitive stove and sipped the black stuff contemplatively, wheezing occasionally as the peat smoke proved invasive.

Glorious public rooms are a feature at Ballyfin

The fires were lit, too, in the grand salons of Ballyfin for our arrival. Up the immense drive, past the pewter ripples of the Demesne’s great man-made lake – to be greeted by the house staff, Downton Abbey style, beneath its Ionic pillared portico.

Ballyfin – the entrance sets the scene

Not much over a decade ago, any arrival would have been hardly as impressive. The 1820 Regency mansion, Ireland’s finest, was in a sorry state. The ancestral Cootes abandoned it for London just before the Great War and the Easter Rising, cannily installing an IRA sympathiser as caretaker to ensure it didn’t go up in flames like so many great houses of the Ascendancy.

The Patrician Brothers' School

Later it was sold and operated as a school run by the Patrician Brothers, a Roman Catholic teaching order, who didn’t have the resources to maintain the fabric. Fred and Kay Krehbiel, a Chicago couple with strong Irish connections, did. The result of a decade’s worth of restoration and countless millions lavished is spectacular.

Family history on the wall and the spectacular main staircase

Chandelier with frieze – attention to detail is astonishing

Take the Gold Drawing Room, where the ladies used to retire after dinner. Wet rot had caused part of the ceiling to cave in. Today the elaborate stucco work and gilt has been restored. The central Rotunda’s intricate marquetry floors were saved by one of the house staff. As they fell apart, she  amazingly bagged them away for safety. Now they are back in place.

It’s hard, too, to believe it’s the same Conservatory that in the “before” pictures was a jungle of choking vegetation and rusted arches. It’s reached by a “secret door” behind  a bookcase in the 80ft library, which occupies the entire south front of the house. The export restorers, aided by the Irish Georgian Society, have done a wonderful job on Ballyfin.

Looking out at The Temple and Conservatory

Ballyfin's Grotto and, below, the Tower

There’s a water cascade feature which can be viewed from the Conservatory and the dining room. It didn’t exist before the refurbishment. You wouldn’t credit that as it tumbles down from a Grecian Temple. It seems as much a part of the rolling estate as the stone Grotto (in the 18th Century a Hermit was hired to inhabit) or the hilltop Tower Folly (a 19th century project to provide work during the Famine).

You can visit all these by riding round the estate in a golf buggy. This being Ireland and with American ownership you might expect a 9-hole golf course here, but this is a purist restoration project. The estate is kept as it was in previous centuries.

Pool at Ballyfin – luxury modern convenience

Antique furniture, porcelain and chandeliers may not all be original but they are period perfect. Comfort is a priority for the deep sofas dotting the public rooms. Plumbing is modern; an indoor swimming pool and spa with organic seaweed treatments occupies the modern art-filled former schoolhouse.

In contrast, many of the ancestral paintings that hang above the spectacular cantilevered staircase in the main house have been bought from the last scion of the Cootes.

Four Poster in The Lady Caroline Coote Room, once her boudoir

We were given the Lady Caroline Coote Room, on the first floor, overlooking the lake. What was her boudoir has been reborn as an elegant Empire style bedroom, whose dazzling blue wallpaper transforms it into a seemingly tent-like enclosure. A four-poster, gorgeous textiles and rococo stucco effects on the ceiling all enhanced the “gone to heaven” feeling.

Chicken and Picpoul de Pinet with pannacotta to follow

So too did dinner, which is included as part of the obligatory all-in package (see Fact File). The chef, Ryan Murphy, a New York expat and former exec head chef at Salford’s Lowry Hotel, has a precise touch in the kitchen. A simple lunch of soup, chicken and pannacotta was exquisite, but the real occasion here is in the evening. Pre-dinner drinks, with lavish top-ups of complimentary champagne beneath twinkling chandeliers, are served from 7.30pm.

The temptation is to continue with the bubbly can continue throughout the dinner. I’d recommend exploring the wine cellar – the sommelier’s happy to show you around – and then one of its cannily selected bottles, perhaps from their selection from 14 French vineyards set up by 18th Century Irish exiles – known as “The Wild Geese”.

Ballyfin is a wonderful place to stay, though its price makes it very much a special occasion place. Few places with such aspirations, though, carry it off with such a smile and sense of occasion.

Charleville Forest Castle rears its gaunt turrets

Some 20 miles to the north of Ballyfin, on the outskirts of Tullamore, lies a very different house, again under loving stewardship but without the resources. Lost in its primordial oak woods, Charleville Forest House was a job to find. Then at the end of a pitted track, through a sinister gateway, the great grey pile rears up at you – a magnet for ghost hunters and film crews.

The druids were here first, then the monks, then the O’Molloy clan. It was an Elizabethan plantation, fought over bloodily. Eventually in the early 19th century, a new Earl, Charles William Bury, built himself his dream house on the 5,000 acre estate. Gothic with a capital G. His descendants, often living beyond their means, added flourishes when they could to its turreted grandeur (William Morris designed the dining room ceiling). There was always a debauched swagger about the place; Lord Byron held many parties here.

But from 1912 it was abandoned; by 1968 the roof had been removed. Then an American (again), Bridget Vance bought it and the Charleville Trust, a volunteer restoration project was formed. We were lucky on our arrival to bump into Trust co-ordinator Dudley Stewart. He ushered us through the teeming chaos of a crew transforming it into the French King’s Palace for a movie about Mary Queen Of Scots. Location income is vital. Recent films shot there include Becoming Jane and Northanger Abbey and it has featured in countless Most Haunted investigations.

The staircase where poor little Harriet fell to her death

We can understand all the spooky stuff as Dudley leads us to the top of the winding tower stairs and points to a spot where the Castle’s most famous ghost, little Harriet plunged to her doom. She’d been sent upstairs to wash her hands and, on her way back, chose to slide down the balustrade but lost her balance. Some have seen a little girl shimmering in her blue chiffon dress, many others felt a rush of chill air as her spectre passes.

Have you encountered Harriet, Dudley? He coughs and points out to us some original stained glass.
 

If you enjoyed this read about Neil’s visits to Castle Leslie

and Wineport

Ballyfin – Ireland's Regency masterpiece