€4m plea for gardens at stately home

A development group is hoping to get €4m funding to do up three unique gardens at a stately home in North Cork.

It is believed that Doneraile Court, once home of the St Leger family, is the only stately home in Britain and Ireland which has three distinct gardens developed in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.

The gardens are retained behind high walls up to 5m high, north and south of the river, which runs through the house’s adjoining parkland.

A masterplan was developed by the Doneraile Demesne Steering Group in 2011 which sets out works which could be done to turn the house and its parkland into a tourist attraction to one day rival Muckross House in Killarney.

This steering group includes representatives of the Office of Public Works (OPW), Fáilte Ireland, Cork County Council, Ballyhoura Development, Mallow Area Partnership, and Doneraile Development Association (DAA).

Part of the proposals to improve facilities there will be brought to government in the autumn in order to open these hidden garden spaces to the public.

“The gardens extend to over 20 acres,” said DAA chairman Willie Pat Hallihan. The plan is to seek funding of around €2m initially to re-establish the 17th century garden and then to get further funding to improve the other gardens.

Research has shown that the gardens were directly influenced by those at Hampton Court and at Versailles and are complementary to those at Lismore Castle.

Uniquely, those at Doneraile are somewhat larger in extent with the original fabric almost entirely preserved.

“The gardens are so vast that all the exotic plants in the world must have grown there at some stage,” Mr Hallihan said.

Next Sunday, DAA is organising free guided walks of the parkland and the gardens as part of Heritage Week.

The walks will get underway at 2pm, starting from the playground car park within the demesne.