Terence-Reeves Smith looks back to the beginnings of these extraordinary gardens, now that phase three of the Woodstock Gardens Restoration Project is under way
There are few more melancholy places than Woodstock, former seat of the Tighe family outside Inistioge. Burnt during the Civil War in July 1922, the ruin’s eyeless sockets now gaze out across empty parterres and terraces of what was once a great showplace of Victorian Ireland. The rich and famous of the day were hosted here and descriptive details of its celebrated grounds were published in the leading British and Irish journals of the period. Free access at all times was allowed to ‘every grade from the prince to the peasant’ and the public responded by coming in considerable numbers, especially after the advent of rail in the 1850s.¹ They came to marvel at the spectacular formal gardens, the unrivalled collection of conifers, the august demesne woodlands and romantic parkland, all beautifully situated above the banks of the Nore in the shadow of the richly wooded slopes of Mount Alto
Shane O’ Toole finds that the tragic atmosphere that had dogged the buildings of St Joseph’s Reformatory has been exorcised
Paul O’ Reilly previews a major exhibition of new work by John Shinnors which will open in his home town of Limerick on 19 September