Following his popular 2018 Irish tour, north from Dublin to Belfast, Dr James Broadbent is leading a second tour starting again in Dublin but travelling south through the counties of Kilkenny, Waterford, Cork, Kerry and Limerick visiting ancient sites, historic gardens, landscapes, “ruins in demesnes deserted”, private country houses and public museums.
From Edwin Lutyens’ formal Heywood Gardens to Harold Peto’s Italianate island garden of Ilnacullin, the Victorian exuberance of Bantry House and the cottage quirkiness of Boyce’s Garden; from romantic Lismore, a seat of the Dukes of Devonshire, and the Marquis of Waterford’s grand Curraghmore to Rothe House, a merchant’s townhouse of the early seventeenth century and from the sad, picturesque ruins of Duckett’s Grove and the preposterous gate lodges of Ballysaggartmore, our visits, as usual, range from the impressive to the eccentric. All tell the story of the country and its culture.