Muckross House

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Muckross House and Gardens, Killarney
Muckross House
Flower garden near Muckross House

Muckross House ( Irish Teach Mhucrois ) was a stately residence and castle-like mansion and is located south of the Irish city of Killarney . It has been at the heart of Bourn Vincent Memorial Park since 1932 . This in turn is part of the more than 10,000  hectares large Killarney National Park .

history

Muckross House was built between 1839 and 1843 according to plans by the Scottish architect William Burn in a picturesque location on the shores of Muckross Lake. The clients were Henry Arthur Herbert and his wife Mary Balfour Herbert , a landscape painter. Muckross House was the fourth mansion that the Herberts had built on their property.

The Herbert family originally came from Wales and had lived on the Muckross estate since the 1730s. In addition to income from agriculture and land leases, their wealth also came from the copper mines that were on their property.

The Herberts reached the peak of their social standing in August 1861, when the British Queen Victoria stayed for a few days in Muckross House. In preparation for this visit, the Herberts spent large sums of money to further develop the house and garden. These expenses led to considerable indebtedness and, in the long term, to the economic decline of the owner family. In 1897 the property finally had to be assigned to the creditor, the Standard Life Assurance Company .

A distant relative of the Herberts and a member of the wealthy Guinness beer-brewing family, Lord Ardilaun , became the next owner of Muckross House in 1899. He did not live there, but rented the house and land to hunting parties. In 1911 he finally sold Muckross to the wealthy American William Bowers Bourn II .

He acquired the property as a wedding present for his daughter, Maud, who, together with her husband, the Englishman Arthur Rose Vincent, worked intensively on the further design of the Muckross House garden in the following years. Particularly noteworthy are the sunken garden , the rock garden and the stream running across Muckross Park. All of them were designed by Wallace and Co. of Colchester in 1915 .

The unexpected death of Maud in 1929, but also high taxes and maintenance costs induced the widower Vincent and his in-laws in 1932 to donate the house and the entire property (approx. 4,000 hectares ) to the Irish state. In return, he undertook to continue the property as Bourn Vincent Memorial Park in its entirety and to make it accessible to the public. Muckross House and its lands became Ireland's first national park.

Through repeated land purchases by the state, the national park has meanwhile been enlarged to around 10,000 hectares.

Since the middle of the 20th century

Muckross House developed into a museum. The rooms and their furnishings give a good impression of the life of the nobles in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The large rooms have oversized ceiling heights. Paintings, tapestries and hunting trophies adorn the walls.

As Killarney is the tourist center of West Ireland, other attractions have been built in and around Muckross House. In the main building there is a restaurant, a pottery and a weaving mill. Outside there were beautiful gardens, mostly with roses. The Walled Garden Center was added in 2000 .

The Muckross Traditional Farms had been set up much earlier . These are intended to show the daily life of the Irish rural population in the 1930s and 1940s, historical agricultural implements with descriptions are on display, and farmers are also employed to cultivate and work the land with these old implements.

Muckross House and Walled Garden Center are open all year round. The house is only closed for the Christmas holidays. Muckross Traditional Farms is closed to visitors during the winter months and mostly reopens in March each year.

The coach tours offered by Muckross House are a special attraction . These are carriage rides out into the extensive grounds of the national park. The donor's wish that the garden should become the largest playground in the world may well have come true.

Spaces

  • The entrance hall: This is where the guests of the house were welcomed before they were invited into the drawing room or library. For balls, the furniture was moved to the side to reveal the dance floor. The three matching sideboards are excellent examples of wood carving from the area and were made by the Egan family of Killarney. The tables are made of rosewood and mahogany. The high stairwell window is made of old English crystal glass.
  • The salon: In this room the family and their guests passed the time with music, singing, card games and board games. The equipment includes game tables, Chinese lacquer sewing boxes, a rosewood grand piano ( John Broadwood & Sons , London 1841) and two mirrors made of Murano glass.
A special feature are the Chinese-looking tables, which were used to keep the heat of the fire off the ladies' faces. The white make-up of that time contained lead. Heat would have caused it to eat its way into the skin.
  • The Dining Room: This room, which has one of the finest furnishings in the house, has practically not been changed since Queen Victoria's visit in 1861. The curtains were woven in Brussels especially for the occasion. The walnut sideboard was custom-made in Italy, carved and bears the Herberts family coat of arms. The portraits depict members of the Vincent family who were the last private owners of the estate.
  • The Ladies' Room: This was the lady of the house's private parlor, where she would relax with handicrafts, arranging flowers, music, or reading. During Queen Victoria's stay, the room was part of a beautiful suite that she lived alone. The equipment and decoration of the room correspond to its condition at the time. The paintings are by Mary Herbert, who was considered the leading landscape painter in her day.
  • Bells: Here the servants were called to the different rooms of the house. Each bell had a different sound, so that the house staff knew without looking from which room they were being called.
  • Kitchen: It was the “energy center” of the house. There was always something going on here. Here the cook ruled and no one except the mistress of the house was allowed to enter the kitchen without his permission.

The kitchen is outside the main building so that food smells shouldn't bother the gentry. However, it had the disadvantage that very heavy panels had to be transported over long distances. On the one hand, this was a strain on the staff and, on the other hand, the food was often cold until it reached its destination.

Others

Rudolf Erich Raspe, known for his satirical Münchhausen stories, is buried in an anonymous poor grave near Muckross House in the Killeaghy cemetery. While advising the owner of Muckross House on the development of the copper mines located on its property, Raspe fell ill with scarlet fever and died in November 1794.

See also

literature

  • Jim Larner (Ed.): Killarney, History and Heritage , Verlag The Collins Press , Cork 2005, pp. 90 ff. And p. 202 ff., ISBN 1-903464-55-2 .

Web links

Commons : Muckross House  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 1 ′ 5.5 ″  N , 9 ° 30 ′ 14.5 ″  W.