Hollybrook Hall is wholly built of mountain granite squared and chiselled, and presents three architectural fronts. That which we have represented in our illustration is the east front, which faces the small lake or pond, and contains the library and drawing-room; but the principal front is that facing the north, on which side the entrance porch is placed. The principal apartments consist of a hall, library, dining and drawing rooms, with the state bed-rooms above them; and of these apartments the hall is the most grand and striking feature, though of inferior size to that of Clontarf Castle. It is thirty-four feet long by twenty feet wide, but has an open porch and vestibule or outer hall, twelve feet six inches wide; and like every other part of the edifice, its details are throughout in the purest style of Tudor architecture. This hall is panelled with oak, and is lighted by one grand stained glass window, eight feet six inches wide, and fourteen feet six inches high. This window, which resembles those of the English ecclesiastical edifices of the fifteenth century, is divided by stone mullions into four days, or compartments, and being beautifully proportioned, affords abundant light to the interior. But the most imposing feature of the hall is its beautiful oak staircase, which, rising from beneath the window, conducts to a gallery which crosses the hall, and communicates with the bed-rooms over the principal apartments. The ceiling is of dark oak, supported by principals which spring from golden corbels, and it is enlivened by golden bosses, which are placed at the various crossings of the rich woodwork, and have a most pleasing effect from the contrasting relief which they give to its pervading dark colour. The cornice, which is equally rich and elegantly proportioned, is surmounted by a gilded crest ornament, which by its lightness and brilliancy attracts the eye, and leads the mind to contemplate the fine proportions and elegance of design which characterises the details of the ceiling in all its parts.
Of the other principal apartments it is only necessary to state that they are equally well proportioned, and have ceilings of great richness and beauty, executed in a bold and masterly style of relief: they are of larger size than the similar rooms of Clontarf Castle, the library being thirty feet by seventeen feet six inches, the dining-room thirty feet by twenty, and the drawing-room thirty-four feet six by twenty. These apartments are lighted by oriel windows, each of which commands a view of some striking beauty in the surrounding scenery. An extensive range of offices and servants’ rooms branches off the Hall on its western side, but these are as yet only partly erected, and further additions are still wanting to carry out the original design of the architect, and give to the edifice as a whole the intricacy and picturesque variety of outline which he intended.
Hollybrook was originally the seat of a highly respectable branch of the Adair family, who, as it is said, though long located in Scotland, are descended from Maurice Fitzgerald, fourth Earl of Kildare. By a marriage with the only daughter of the last proprietor of this family, Forster Adair, Esq., it passed into the possession of Sir Robert Hodson, Bart., descended of an old English family, and father of the present proprietor, who succeeded to the baronetcy and estates on the death of his elder brother the late Sir Robert Adair Hodson, by whom the new structure of Hollybrook Hall was commenced. Sir Robert was a gentleman of refined tastes and intellectual acquirements—a landscape painter of no small merit, and of a poetic mind. The present baronet is, we believe, similarly gifted, and therefore worthy to be the proprietor and resident of a spot of such interest and beauty; but he should raze those odious unsightly walls, which exclude Hollybrook from the eye, and make it an unvisited and almost unknown solitude.
P.
None are so seldom found alone, and are so soon tired of their own company, as those conceited coxcombs who are on the best terms with themselves.
TIM CALLAGHAN,
THE INIMITABLE PIPER.
Oh! ye whom business or pleasure shall henceforth lead to the county of Wexford, especially to the baronies of Forth and Bargie, should you see a tall, stout, lazy-looking fellow, with sleepy eyes and huge cocked nose, dragging his feet along as if they were clogs imposed on him by nature to restrain his motion instead of helping him forward, dawdling along the highways, or lounging about a public-house, with a green bag under his arm, beware of him, for that is Tim Callaghan!—fling him a sixpence or shilling if you will, but ask him not for music!
Tim Callaghan seriously assured me “that he sarved seven long years wid as fine a piper as ever put chanther ondher an arm;” and that at the end of that well-spent period he began to enchant the king’s lieges on his own account, master of a splendid set of pipes, and three whole tunes (barring a few odd turns here and there which couldn’t be conquered, and of no consequince), a golden store in his opinion.
“Ah, then, Tim,” said I, when I was perfectly acquainted with himself and his musical merits, “what a pity that with your fine taste and superior set of pipes you did not try to conquer the half dozen at least!”
“Ogh, musha!” quoth Tim, looking sulky and annoyed, “that same quisthen has been put to me by dozens, an’ I hate to hear it! It was only yistherday that another lady axt me that same. ‘Arrah, ma’am,’ ses I, ‘did ye ever play a thune on the pipes in yer life?’ ‘Niver, indeed,’ ses she, lookin’ ashamed ov her ignorance, as she ought. ‘Bekase if ye did,’ ses I agin, ‘ye’d soon say, “bright was yerself, Tim Callaghan, to get over the three thunes dacently, widout axin’ people to do what’s onpossible.”’ An’ now I appail to you, Miss, where’s the use ov bodherin’ people’s brains wid six or seven whin three does my business as well?”