Paolo and Filippo Lafranchini - billiard room ceiling (1746) John van Nost the younger - statue of Catherine, Countess of Tyrone (1754) Peter DeGree - Circular medallions in drawing room ceiling and oval panels in dining room (1787) Joseph Edgar Boehm - family crest on tower and pediment (1870)
Curraghmore near Portlaw, County Waterford, Ireland, is a historic house and estate and the seat of the Marquess of Waterford. The estate was part of the grant of land made to Sir Roger le Puher (la Poer) by Henry II in 1177 after the Anglo-Norman invasion of Ireland.[3] Since then, the De La Poer Beresford family has owned these estates. It is the oldest family home in Ireland.
History
Curraghmore House is the De La Poer Beresford family estate that once covered around 39,000 acres. The family remain amongst the largest land owners in all Ireland. Curraghmore near Waterford in South East Ireland, had stables for 100 horses and employed 600 people. The family has been heavily involved in hunting throughout the centuries, to the point where members of the family have been killed in riding accidents. On the south drive spanning over the river Clodagh is King John's Bridge, built for the King's arrival in 1205. It is Ireland's oldest bridge. The mediaeval park is surrounded by a fourteen-mile famine relief boundary wall, making it the world's longest estate wall. Before the 5th Marquess removed it, the fountain in front of the house was the tallest in Europe. Now surrounded by c.3,500 acres of formal gardens, woodland and grazing fields. This makes it Ireland's largest private demesne. [4]
It is believed that a castle was erected on the site in the twelfth century,[6] however the core of the current house is a medieval tower-house. This was extended in 1700 when a house was built around a court with the medieval tower-house incorporated at the north-eastern side. A forecourt with stables was added in the 1750s or 1760s and the house was refurbished in the 1780s.[7]Samuel Usher Roberts, a grandson of the Waterford architect John Roberts, is credited with encasing the main block of the house in the late 19th century.[8] The forecourt, flanked by ranges of outbuildings, is described by the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage as “without precedent or parallel in Ireland”.[9]
All Together Now festival
Starting in 2018, the estate had held the All Together Now music festival in the grounds of the estate on the August bank holiday weekend.[10] The event took place on the August Bank Holiday weekend in 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Further reading
Wikisource has original text related to this article:
^Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government (2004). An Introduction of the Architectural Heritage of County Waterford. Dublin: Government of Ireland. p. 89. ISBN0755719115.