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the theatre or completing the evening with dancing, music or card playing.vi The establishment of dining rooms also required greater quan-
tities of glass and table silver.(vii) When Margaret Harvey attended a dinner party at her relation, Tom Harvey’s house, in Cork she described
the dining room as having “one large table in the middle and two side tables laid. The furniture in the room and the superb manner the
tables were decorated exceeds anything I ever saw. The room is about forty feet by twenty, with three large windows front, over which is a
pole the length of the room, by way of cornice, beautifully gilt. The curtains were crimson, with wings to them; but the drapery was thrown
over the pole and hung in festoons from one end of the room to the other and of course, over the pier. It is a most fanciful way of putting
up curtains. I never saw any put up so handsome with us. The floor is covered all over with a rich Turkey carpet; mahogany chairs. The
room, elegant light papered. Over the chimney, a portrait of the eldest boy, as large as life, playing Shuttlecock. Under the table was green
cloth spread, fine enough for coats. But how shall I give thee an idea of the grandeur of the tables? – I do not know.”
Thus furniture can carry its history of the cabinet-maker or owner. When Lord Charleville inherited a house and its contents from his aunt
he took her furniture, ‘in my part, on Preston’s Valuation, there are a few very ancient chairs, three gallant Old Christ’s and a few good ma-
hogany articles which shall be sent here, besides two valuable Looking Glasses in good carved gilt wood frames not damaged, which when
properly cleaned up will answer. All the rest of the trumpery goes to Bride’s Alley’.(viii) The fact that Irish furniture is now so sought after in
turn encourages scholarship and appreciation of labels (Lot 103 Clarke) and papers. In this auction it is hoped you will discover gilt wood,
the gallant, good mahogany and perhaps a little trumpery!
i Brian de Breffny and Rosemary ffolliott, The Houses of Ireland (London, (reprint 1984) 1975) 181.
ii R. Herbert (ed.), ‘Diary of Sir Vere Hunt, 1761-1818’, Dublin Magazine, April, June and August,
1943. Quoted by Melosina Lenox-Conyngham (ed.), Diaries of Ireland (Dublin, 1998) 131.
iii James Adam Salerooms, 26 St Stephens Green, Dublin, Kilsharvan House, County Meath, 14 October, 1998.
Sale brochure; Louth Meath Properties, Kilsharvan House, Drogheda, County Meath. For sale by
public auction on Friday 11 September 1998. This brochure for Kilsharvan contained some interior
photographs.
v NLI, MS 13651 (19), Mary to O’Connell, 7 September 1819, cited by Erin I. Bishop, The World of
Mary O’Connell, (Dublin, 1999) 97.
vi Henry Heaney (ed.), The Irish Journals of Robert Graham of Redgorton (Dublin, 1999), 33, 35-36,
41and 44.
vii Stana Nenadic, ‘Middle-rank consumers and domestic culture in Edinburgh and Glasgow 1720-1840’,
Past & Present, 145 (1994) 148.
viii Nottingham City University, Marlay Letters, My 81/1, First Earl Charleville, Charles William Bury to
his wife Charlotte, 6 January 1805. The reference to Preston of Henry Street is suggestive that Lord
Charleville may also have obtained other services from this cabinetmaker including furniture.
Lot 221