Annesbrook House: a manor made fit for a king who never graced its halls

Heritage runs deep through the land around Annesbrook House outside Duleek in Co Meath. A Bronze Age burial site was discovered in the early 1900s and remains the largest assemblage ever found in Ireland. Dated from 1800BC, the artefacts – funerary vessels and urns – are now on display in the National Museum of Ireland.

Just over the fence to the front of the house is the townland of Keenogue, which is the birthplace of St Cianan, the first bishop consecrated in Ireland by St Patrick.

The house, a rambling Georgian manor on 10 acres, with a two-acre walled garden, a dovecote in the courtyard, and a sequoia dating from the 1840s in the gardens, has had many incarnations.

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Annesbrook house: livingroom

Some of the original walls date from Norman times, and the vast kitchen has its origins in a 17th-century farmhouse.

The impressive portico and ballroom were additions erected in honour of the visit of King George IV in 1821.

Three weeks after he was appointed regent due to his father's mental illness, George IV embarked on a visit to Ireland. As his wife, Princess Caroline, lay dying from laudanum poisoning, the king set off to Ireland to visit his mistress Elizabeth, Lady Conyngham of Slane Castle.

Alas, George IV, known for his heavy drinking and indulgent lifestyle, only came close enough to lunch on the lawns of Annesbrook and never got to see the ballroom erected in his honour.

The current chatelaine of Annesbrook is Kate Sweetman, who has lived here for 40 years. Previously based in Los Angeles, and with a home in Ranelagh and a return to Ireland on the horizon, Kate was in search of “a cottage on an acre – somewhere we could come to at weekends. A call came through about Annesbrook, and as a joke we said to bid for it; we had no idea how large it was.”

Kate, whose family sold its Sweetman Brewery business to Guinness in the 1800s, grew up in the Italianate Derrybawn House in Laragh, Co Wicklow.

Guesthouse

But a rambling Annesbrook House without staff is a different matter. Kate joined Hidden Ireland, a marketing group for country houses in Ireland, and ran a guesthouse for 20 years to help pay for its upkeep. After two decades the work took its toll; “At that stage I decided I needed to live, and not spend 24 hours a day working.”

The costly maintenance of such a property is endless. Kate was advised by an architect that the portico, on which a stone had split, needed to be taken down – at a cost of €85,000 and a further €85,000 for re-erection. A second opinion from a restoration engineer advised that if the stones had not moved in 200 years they would get by just being pinned, and so the problems were fixed at a fraction of the cost.

Further battles

Further battles lay in the ornate plasterwork on the ballroom ceiling. “A section fell down after a family wedding in 2002, and the entire roof had to come off,” recalls Kate.

"The project was going to cost €75,000 just to fix the ceiling. But with the help of Sam [Stephenson, the late architect and a relative of Kate] we secured a grant through Meath Heritage Council. Desmond Guinness, on behalf of the Georgian Society, also kindly sent a cheque for €10,000, so we funded the rest."

In keeping with the ornate ceiling legacy, Kate's maternal family were the La Touches of Marlay Park and the first bankers in Ireland. The ceiling of the former La Touche Bank on Dame Street – a plasterwork of Venus and Cupid – was moved to Bank of Ireland in College Green in 1946, where it now graces the ceiling of the La Touche Room.

After refurbishing the courtyard and some of the cottages, Kate and her daughter Sadhbh, an illustrator, engaged Francis and John Brennan of the Kenmare Park Hotel and more recently the RTÉ production At Your Service to advise on new opportunities for Annesbrook.

The idea of a wedding venue took hold, and the property launched itself as a unique spot for nuptials with a capacity for 70 guests. “I’ve poured a lot of tea for future brides” says Sadhbh, “but we found that most people want a more formulaic and finished product, without the creaking floorboards and tired grandeur of Annesbrook.”

Music or theatre

While the house is still used as a wedding and party venue, the family has branched out into the arts, offering intimate dinners with music or theatre in the ballroom. Guests can be entertained by professional actors performing Dickens and Wilde while tucking into Kate’s fare.

Annesbrook has also been the choice of accommodation for actors over the years, and past guests include Jane Birkin and the late Donal McCann. Maggie Smith and Michael Gambon stayed for six weeks in 1999 while filming The Last September, preferring the quirkiness of Annesbrook to a characterless hotel.

One of the gilt-framed paintings in the dining room features Kate’s grand-aunt: Ina Aliaga Kelly of Casa De Aliaga in Lima, said to be the oldest house in the Americas. Home to 17 generations of the Aliaga family since 1535, they too have opened their historical property to the public.

Kate and her family have tried many ways to pay for the upkeep of this house with its rich architectural heritage, but the secret to securing its future may just lie in the ballroom as a unique entertainment venue. It was, after all, built for a king. See annesbrook.com