Antiques: Irish country house furniture at James Adams sale

Skills of refugees from centuries gone by highlighted at the James Adams Townley Hall sale

The Blessington Commode at James Adams.

The Blessington Commode — created by a refugee and asylum seeker and arguably the single most important piece of Irish mid-18th century furniture at auction in decades — comes up at the annual Country House Collections sale by James Adams at Townley Hall in Co. Louth on October 9 and 10.

Attributed to John Kirkhoffer the commode has been linked directly to a signed 1732 piece dated 1732 by the same maker in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The Kirkhoffers were Protestant asylum seekers who arrived in Ireland as refugees from the Rhineland Palatinate area. They were in counties Kerry and Limerick before settling in Dublin.