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Great Irish Houses, Nobody Home: The Ruins of Galway, by Daniel Finnerty
Great Irish Houses
Nobody Home: The Ruins of Galway
By Daniel Finnerty
Daniel Finnerty is an undergraduate student of History of Art and Architecture at Trinity College Dublin, raised in Galway on the west coast of Ireland his love for architecture and interior design was born from his adventures exploring the ruins that punctuate the Irish landscape. His Instagram @greatirishhouses explores these evocative buildings, creating a culture of conservation and appreciation.
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Easter 1916: William Butler Yeats.
The picturesque ruins of country houses silhouetting the island of Ireland may seem romantic to us today, forgotten and forlorn in a characteristically Yeatsian aptitude. These ruins however are not gestures of poetry or painting but motifs of a militant past, built up over centuries and dismantled through famine, politics and rebellion. William Butler Yeats captured this turning point in Irish history throughout his poetry, Ireland was changing, the epoque of the Ascendancy was over and the country house fell victim to the conflagration of war and with it Yeats called for all time to be destroyed.
