Terence Reeves-Smyth savours the vistas and scents of Mount Stewart gardens in County Down
Stepping out from Mount Stewart house onto its garden terraces can be likened to entering a fabulous stage-set with the cast assembled and waiting to perform. Foremost are the plants, arranged in rich, exuberant and colourful displays, including many rare and tender varieties, interspersed with multitudes of whimsical statues of animals and mythical beasts, columns and urns. Graceful flights of steps, balustrading, ornamental ironwork, fountains, topiary, gazebos and pergolas jostle for attention on the different elevations of this garden stage, while behind lies a backdrop of exotic trees providing shelter from the tidal waters of Strangford Lough.
Was Daniel Maclise a proto-Nationalist painter? Peter Murray thinks not, in his assessment of the National Gallery’s recently restored masterpiece.
Christiaan Corlett looks at a valuable, but little-known portfolio of photographs taken by Victorian doctor Ephraim MacDowel Cosgrave, now in the collection of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland
Vivienne Roche belongs to a generation who transformed what sculpture could be. ‘I don’t consider myself an object-maker. I work with place and change’, she tells Brian McAvera while her exhibition continues at the Royal Hibernian Academy