Russborough, Blessington, County Wicklow (The Irish Heritage Series: 13)

Russborough, Blessington, County Wicklow By Sir Alfred Beit - The seventeenth century in Ireland was a period of unrest and rebellion. A fortified house was a safer place of abode than an elegant mansion. Consequently, the beautiful Elizabethan and Jacobean houses which grace the English, and to a lesser extent the Scottish, countryside are almost non-existent in Ireland. But after the Battle of the Boyne (1690) there came a period of tranquillity and prosperity - the latter at least for the landed classes - which lasted nearly ninety years and gave birth to a frenzy of building in town and country alike. The new landlords, and some of the old ones, more particularly in the Pale, vied with one another in the construction of more beautiful and more elaborate houses. For the arts of architecture and decoration the period was a happy one, and architects and craftsmen of all kinds were brought from abroad, especially from the continent of Europe. The north-west front of the house. The wings are hidden by the curvature of the colonnades.