by Tarquin Blake  Published by The Collins Press in October 2010 ISBN: 978-1848890619 ‘Here, traveller, scholar, poet, take your stand 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, financed 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’ finances 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. Mesmerising images of crumbling ruins accompany the histories of the houses and their occupants to tell a fascinating story of troubled times and private hardships. Television Clip - RTE Nationwide - Abandoned Mansions of Ireland Review - The Journal - Abandoned Mansions of Ireland
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