Agricultural History Review, Volume 64 Part 1 (2016), p. 119

‘For the house of the planter / Is known by the trees’ are lines from The planter’s daughter, a poem by Austin Clarke (1896–1974). The image is easily understood in an Irish context, for within a landscape denuded of trees the Irish demesne, with its dense plantations, stood out. Despite the visibility of demesnes – often delineated by high walls as well as trees – these places have been comparatively under-researched, unlike the houses which lay at their centre. Pioneering work on Irish gardening and the cult of improvement by Toby Barnard and on idealized and formal landscapes by Finola O’Kane has opened up this ground. Irish demesne landscapes, therefore, is a welcome addition to this emerging field.

The book opens with a cursory examination of the political, intellectual and economic background to seventeenth-century Irish estates. The turmoil created by the Civil War of the 1640s and the Commonwealth period of the 1650s, with its land redistributions, had unsettled estates and their owners. With the restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660 a more settled period developed, which had the effect of transforming the landscape in England. The same process was witnessed in Ireland and is expertly detailed in this book. (Surprisingly, Costello does not engage with Barnard’s Improving Ireland? Projectors, profits and profiteers, 1641–1786, which covers some of her case studies.)

The imperatives of bringing civility and making the land productive were motivating factors for landowners, their agents and gardeners. Costello rejects the notion that landscapes were politicized in Ireland, as they had been in some English places, and instead argues that taste, fashion and certain continuities from the past determined the look of Irish demesnes and gardens. Nevertheless, these were idealized landscapes, designed to complement houses and to exude prosperity, usefulness and fecundity. Likewise, the book argues that to delineate gardens as Dutch, French, or Italianate is to mislead. Instead styles were mixed according to taste and fashion, and by the pooling of ideas between landowner, architects, agents, jobbing gardeners and tradesmen. Nevertheless, the constant communication with equivalents in England ensured that the Irish demesne closely mirrored developments there.

Several printed books, mostly published in England, acted as guides to the aspiring landowner. Yet while there was an appetite for these books, Costello acknowledges that much of the advice they contained was not well suited to Irish conditions. The first Irish book, Richard Lawrence’s Interest of Ireland (1682), sought to remedy this by providing practical suggestions on improving stock and land. For many, Irish demesnes were evidence of ‘improvement’, that often intangible concept that motivated several landowners to expend vast sums on their demesnes.

Perhaps the most rewarding part of the book is contained in chapters 4 to 9, which deal with the various elements that made up the Irish demesne: the pleasure garden, horticultural land, plants and shrubs, the use and control of water, and recreation within the landscape. Through careful archival research in the surviving papers for estates such as Breckdenston in county Dublin, Burton and Castlemartyr in Cork, Kilkenny Castle, and Kilruddery in Wicklow, Costello dissects the landscape into its various constituent parts. While some of this ground has been examined previously, Costello’s approach is different and rewarding. She introduces the reader to the limited range of ornamental and fruit plants that were available and where they were sourced, as well as the experiments in growing vines, melons, and mulberry trees. Demesne greenhouses, which became common in Ireland from the seventeenth century, made some of these experiments possible. Irish landowners and gardeners were as eager as their English counterparts to source exotic varieties, using both private contacts as well as nurserymen in the major cities to do so. For example, the gardens created by Arthur Rawdon at Moira had several Jamaican trees and plants, sometimes obtained from his friend Hans Sloane in London, but also through his own contacts in the Caribbean.

A chapter on trees and woodlands details the exacting rules for the layout of plantations, as well as the avenues and walks which dissected them. Another on canals, lakes and other water features demonstrate how ambitious some landowners were in creating their idealized landscape. In some cases, older fishponds were converted into canals and lakes, while still providing fish for the table. Fountains, jets and water houses became de rigueur for those who wished to enjoy the spectacle and impress visitors. A final chapter investigates the deer park, rabbit warren and duck decoy. These elements appealed to those who wished to have a productive and useful landscape, although the high costs of building and maintenance ensured that few would survive into the nineteenth century. Indeed the desire for a more naturalistic landscape by the end of the eighteenth century ensured that many demesnes were transformed, obliterating much of the formality of earlier times.

Overall this is a well-researched and pioneering book, which capably dissects demesne landscapes in Ireland at a crucial period of their development. It will reward those who are interested in how the landscape was designed and laid out, and may prompt others to further investigate questions about the cost and continuing development and maintenance of gardens, woodlands, and other features in the same period and beyond. Some unfortunate typographical errors managed to escape the editing process. The footnotes in chapter 1 are out of sequence and the last footnote is missing. Nevertheless this is a book that will remain required reading for those interested in the study of Irish demesnes.