{"id":283,"date":"2007-04-17T20:30:41","date_gmt":"2007-04-17T20:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.design42.com\/ireland\/?p=283"},"modified":"2023-08-26T12:39:10","modified_gmt":"2023-08-26T12:39:10","slug":"the-wonderful-barn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.design42.com\/ireland\/2007\/04\/the-wonderful-barn\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wonderful Barn"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Howley in The Follies and Garden Buildings of Ireland, one of the books I planned my trip with says \u201c\u2026the Wonderful Barn is\u2026 arguably one of the finest follies to be found in Ireland.\u201d It is not on the tourist maps, but I had enough information to find it.
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\nThe book says; \u201cThe barn was built in 1743 by Mrs. Conolly to close a vista to the east of Castletown.\u201d So, I looked east of Castletown. It is 70 feet tall, so it must be visible from a distance.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Wonderful Barn can be seen from Celbridge Road near Leixlip<\/p><\/div>\n

I was leaving Leixlip Castle, wandering in the general direction of Castletown. I turned on Celbridge Road and there it was, in the distance. It was unbelievably easy to find. I made a right on a likely seeming road and just drove right up to it.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Follies and Garden Buildings of Ireland
by James Howley<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"The Wonderful Barn is really an eccentric building. It was built in a rectangular walled courtyard with two similar looking pigeon-houses beside it. People often ate birds at that time, both hunted and domesticated. People still eat pigeon meat. It is called squab. I am told it tastes like dark-meat chicken. I\u2019ve had Cornish hen. It was delicious. Perhaps pigeon is something like that.<\/p>\n

James Howley in The Follies and Garden Buildings of Ireland said of this and similar follies \u201cIt is a delightful geometric exercise, built to amuse and delight, and in this case produce pigeons and eggs for the table, even if they were somewhat difficult to collect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPigeon-houses were often built beside buildings used to store grain; the principle being, presumably, that one\u2019s spilled grain was consumed by the pigeons, thus recovered indirectly as pigeon meat.\u201d James Howley says in the same book.<\/p>\n

Without this book I would never have been able to tell how complicated the Wonderful Barn and it\u2019s pigeon-houses are.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Wonderful Barn<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Wonderful Barn, The Follies and Garden Buildings of Ireland, James Howley<\/p><\/div>\n