Ruth Thorpe looks at the influences that shaped Lady Louisa Conolly’s redesign of the Long Gallery at Castletown and her acquisition of its famous 18th-century Venetian chandeliers.
The recent conservation and restoration of the three magnificent Murano chandeliers in Castletown’s Long Gallery allows us to appreciate how they might have looked when first hung and prompts tantalising questions on how they came to be here.
The 24-light Venetian chandeliers were among some of Castletown’s key treasures bought privately by the Hon. Desmond Guinness from Lord Carew, saving them from inclusion in the auction of the house’s contents in 1966. Failing in his bid to purchase the house itself at that time, Desmond Guinness had the chandeliers dismantled, packed each one into tea chests and stored them at his home, Leixlip Castle. When he bought Castletown the following year they were restored to the Long Gallery.
Janet Mullarney’s sculptures perform as metaphors, not portraits, writes Cliodhna Shaffrey