The restoration of Ballywalter Park, perhaps the most notable Victorian country mansion in the North of Ireland, is remarkable for several reasons. It was built in 1845 while the famine ravaged the country yet Belfast was booming. It has survived in the same family since then and remains a private residence. The magnificent restoration for the present owner Brian Mulholland, Lord Dunleath, has just been awarded one of the thirty EHS (Environment and Heritage Service) Conservation Awards given this year to mark the thirtieth anniversary of Listed Buildings in Northern Ireland. Dick Oram tells its story
The earliest documentation of the site on which Ballywalter Park was built is the purchase in 1729 of Ballymagown, as it was then known, by Mr Matthews from the Montgomerys of the adjoining estate of Rosemount. The town of Ballywalter dates its foundation to 1605 by James Hamilton, a Scottish planter. By the time of the Restoration, Manorial Status had been conferred
The Lemon Street Gallery, in collaboration with RTÉ, are currently hosting an exhibition marking the fiftieth anniversary of the photography of Dublin by Nevill Johnson. For the first time a chronological account of Nevill Johnson’s artistic career is illustrated; mainly through photography, but also incorporating his painting and writing. The paintings range from the early 1940s to the ‘London’ paintings. The occasion also marks the launch of the Nevill Johnson Annual Award to assist emerging artists in the North and the South of Ireland, thereby acknowledging the influence of Belfast and Dublin on Nevill Johnson’s artistic development. At the height of his career as a painter Nevill Johnson turned to photography; Eoin O’Brien and Dickon Hall explain why