Lismacue

Lismacue in County Tipperary, just north of the road from Cahir to Limerick near the village of Bansha, is approached by an unusually long avenue of lime trees with views of the Galtee Mountains and the Glen of Aherlow. The house was completed in 1813 to the design of the Kilkenny architect William Robertson in a mildly Tudor-Revival style that is far more delicate than his more exuberant later work. The walls are rendered with ‘eyebrows’ over the windows and restrained pinnacles and crenellations, with a small floating crenellated pediment or gable on each front.

Of two storeys over a basement, the façade is three bays wide, with a single storied Gothick open porch supported on elegant square columns and the same tripartite arrangement is echoed by the doorcase. The two other fronts are both five bays wide while the lower wing to the North, which terminates in a gable, is almost entirely occupied by a single large window with robust Gothick tracery.

The interior is classically late Georgian, covered with a thin Gothick over-layer. Many of the large rooms have good plasterwork, there is a fine wide staircase, and the ground floor rooms have a wonderful set of mahogany doors. Several rooms retain their early wallpaper, which dates from the 1830s.

In 1705 William Baker purchased Lismacue from Charles Blount, and the estate has been owned by his descendants ever since. The present owners are Jim Nicholson and his wife Kate, who inherited Lismacue from her father, William Baker.