Bantry House holding out for a ‘white knight’
It certainly looks like that, what with American, Irish and British tourists milling around the expansive gardens, but Bantry House is experiencing a period of upheaval. Its owners, the Shelswell-White family, had made the momentous decision to sell the contents in an attempt to resolve long-running financial issues. Then, weeks from the proposed auction, the event was pulled over a licensing issue, in what Brigitte Shelswell-White and her daughter, Sophie, lightheartedly refer to as “Garth Brooks II”. The question remains as to whether this was a lucky break, a stay of execution, or simply a postponement of the inevitable.
The sunglasses worn by Brigitte are due to recovery from a small cataract operation earlier in the week, rather than to combat the sun shining down on Bantry Bay, but such has been the strengthening focus on the house and its contents in recent months, you could be forgiven for wondering if she is simply trying to go incognito. The idea of the house shedding its collection of artifacts, gathered from around the world and including pieces from the Palace of Versailles, has dismayed heritage campaigners who fear it will be scattered to the four winds. Against that, is the struggles to keep it intact amid financial uncertainty for the owners.
