SALE! Abandoned Mansions of Ireland Vol 1 & 2 by Tarquin Blacke

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Vol 1 :
From the mid-eighteenth century Irish country houses flourished. Landowners generated easy income leasing land to tenants. As their wealth increased, so did the size of their country mansions. But factors such as the Great Famine, land reforms, the increasing expense of maintenance and the IRA targeting the houses during the War of Independence took their toll. Gradually, abandoned and forgotten, the houses sank into decay. In 2008 Tarquin Blake found his first abandoned 'Big House' and so began exploring the lost architecture of Ireland. Here, he documents what is left of fifty mansion houses with brief histories and beautiful photographs of the haunting ruins. Included are Mountpelier Lodge (Dublin Hellfire Club), the birthplaces of Daniel O'Connell and the Duke of Wellington, and the one-time homes of Grace O'Malley and of brewing family the Smithwicks of Kilkenny. The inclusion of details from the 1911 Census offers a glimpse of the closing days of the aristocracy and their mansions.

Vol 2 :
Following the success of Abandoned Mansions of Ireland, Tarquin Blake documents more forgotten stately homes. These include Elsinore in County Sligo, where William and Jack Butler Yeats spent many childhood summers, and Gortnamona House in County Offaly, built by the 'heir to the principality of Ofelia' in 1803. Auburn House in County Westmeath was named after the 'deserted village' immortalised by the poet Oliver Goldsmith, whose father was a tenant on the estate. The heyday of the Irish country house began in the early 1700s, when most farmland in Ireland was owned by Anglo-Irish Protestant landowners. The land, worked by tenant farmers, fi nanced the increasing opulence of landowners' mansion houses. The Great Famine triggered a change of fortune: starving, penniless tenants could not pay rent and the landowners' fi nances went into decline. Later, the Land Acts transferred land into the ownership of the tenant farmers and, with their rental income removed, many landlords locked up and left. Others frittered away the family fortune trying to maintain a luxurious lifestyle.During the War of Independence and Irish Civil War, country houses became a target for the Irish Republican Army and many were burned. For the remainder of the twentieth century, the increasing expense of maintenance made these houses unviable and hundreds fell into hopeless dereliction. Beautiful, haunting images of these crumbling ruins accompany the histories of the houses and their occupants to tell again a fascinating story of troubled times and private hardships.

Hardback with dust jacket, 338 pages each, large format. Dust jackets have some wear and tear, the books are in good condition, see photos.