North Kerry’s 18th-Century Historic Houses: Architectural & Landscape Treasures seminar, Friday 9th October 2026, Kerry Writers’ Museum, Listowel, County Kerry

On Friday 9 October 2026, the Irish Georgian Society and Kerry County Council came together at Kerry Writers’ Museum on The Square in Listowel for a full-day seminar dedicated to the country houses and designed landscapes of North Kerry. Free to attend and forming part of Kerry County Council’s Architecture Kerry Festival 2026, the full capacity seminar brought together historians, architects and heritage professionals to examine a remarkable and often overlooked part of Ireland’s built heritage.

North Kerry’s historic cultural landscape is exceptionally rich, encompassing everything from the modest homes of minor gentry to the mansion house of the Earl of Kerry, Lord Fitzmaurice. The seminar set out to explore the legacy of these houses and their landscapes, to raise awareness of their importance among the public and key stakeholders, to consider how these cultural assets might be better valued and used, and to highlight the threats they face in the 21st century.

The seminar also formed an action of the Irish Georgian Society’s Conservation Education Programme, which is overseen by Emmeline Henderson, Assistant Director & Conservation Manager at the Irish Georgian Society.

The Programme

The seminar was officially launched by Kerry County Council’s Leas-Chathaoirleach, Councillor Jimmy Maloney, who spoke about the fragility of North Kerry’s historic houses and designed landscapes. He observed that we cannot protect what we do not understand and therefore commended Kerry County Council for its Architecture Kerry Festival and in particular Kerry County Council’s Architectural Conservation Officer and Heritage Officer, Dr Victoria McCarthy for both initiating the festival nine years ago, and her annually stewardship of the festival thereafter, and for devising the programme for the North Kerry’s 18^th Century Historic Houses seminar. Furthermore Leas-Chathaoirleach thanked Kerry County Council’s Senior Executive Planner, Declan O’Malley and his colleague Sorcha Twomey for all they have achieved in delivering Architecture Kerry Festival 2026 and ensuring the realisation of the seminar.

Thereafter nine speakers took the audience from the medieval origins of North Kerry’s great estates through the Georgian era of building and planting, and on to the upheavals of the 20th century and the conservation challenges of today.

Jane O’Hea O’Keeffe — The Big House in Kerry: A Social History
Drawing on oral history, photographs and documentary sources, Jane O’Hea O’Keeffe — co-founder, with her late husband Maurice O’Keeffe, of Irish Life and Lore — charted the rise and decline of some of North Kerry’s best-known estates and the lives of those who lived and worked on them. She paid particular attention to the remarkable women of these houses, whose strength, foresight and hard work left a lasting mark on their localities.

Tom Dillon — The Road to the Big House: Avenues, Trees and Landscape Design in North Kerry
Historian and educator Tom Dillon, twice Kerry County Council’s Historian-in-Residence, examined the avenue as an integral part of the arrival experience at gentry and noble houses. Drawing on North Kerry examples, including the lime avenue at Ballyhorgan (East) House near Lixnaw, he showed how avenue layouts and planting shifted from formal, single-species rows towards more naturalistic compositions — and how many survive today as living monuments, frequently outlasting the houses they once led to.

Kay Caball — Crotta 1669–1920: From Big House to Ruin
Genealogist and local historian Kay Caball, a native of Listowel, traced the story of the Great House at Crotta and the people who lived there — from its beginnings as a Norman Fitzmaurice castle, through the original great house of 1669 and Richard Morrison’s redesign of 1819, to its decline into a derelict ruin by 1921. Among Crotta’s notable occupants were the Ponsonbys, the Galvins of Crotta, and the Kitchener family of Horatio, later Earl Kitchener of Khartoum.

Dr Declan Downey — Between the Woods and the Waters: Tarbert House & Demesne, from 1698 to 1798
Dr Declan M. Downey of University College Dublin explored the architecture, décor and landscape of Tarbert House during the first hundred years of its history. Built by the Leslie family as their principal seat between 1698 and 1720 and extended in the 1740s and 1750s, Tarbert is one of Ireland’s few surviving late Stuart–early Georgian houses still owned and lived in by the family who built it.

Professor David Fleming — The Lost Great Garden of Tralee
Professor David Fleming of the University of Limerick told the story of the great garden laid out by Arthur Denny in the early decades of the 18th century. Designed to command views from the Denny seat at Tralee Castle, its scale and ambition reflected Denny’s tastes. The talk examined this rare example of a great garden within a county town, and how the town eventually absorbed it.

Professor Finola O’Kane — The Conservation of Lixnaw’s Historic Landscape — A Blueprint for Ireland’s Future Heritage?
Landscape historian and architect Professor Finola O’Kane of University College Dublin assessed the significance of the historic landscape at Lixnaw alongside Ireland’s other major Baroque landscapes and the towns they generated. She discussed the challenges facing large designed landscapes in Ireland, proposed approaches to protecting and communicating their outstanding universal value, and considered the benefits of identifying and prioritising the country’s greatest landscapes — posing the question of why landscapes of such renowned quality remain so hard to protect.

Dr John Knightly — The Big Houses of North Kerry during the War of Independence and Civil War 1919–1923
Dr John Knightly, head of the World Heritage Unit in the National Monuments Service, examined why some North Kerry houses were destroyed during the revolutionary period while others endured. Six major Big Houses in North Kerry were destroyed in these years, while some thirty more survived; the talk explored the motivations behind destruction and expropriation, the reasons for survival, and how the families concerned responded to — and fared in — the new Ireland.

Dr Erika Hanna — The Earl of Listowel’s Steward and the Social History of Listowel, 1885–1935
Dr Erika Hanna of the University of Bristol presented the life of Paul Sweetnam, steward to the Earl of Listowel from 1885 to 1918, who was central to the daily running of the estate in and around Listowel but found it hard to secure a place in the new political order after independence. His story opened up wider questions about how life changed for those who worked on landed estates through a period of revolution, and how national political change played out locally in disputes over access to land and water.

Professor Terry Dooley (in absentia) — The Irish Land Commission and landscape change in post-independence Kerry, c.1923–94

Professor Terence Dooley, founder and Director of the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates at Maynooth University, addressed the work of the Land Commission in Kerry after independence. He considered its far-reaching effects on country houses and demesnes — including the demolition of houses such as Derryquin Castle (demolished in 1969) and the division of demesne lands to create more economic farms and to resettle congests from west to east.

Chairing the Sessions
Sessions were chaired by Donough Cahill, Executive Director, Irish Georgian Society and Jane Wales, Senior Architectural Advisor at the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage (NIAH), National Built Heritage Service, whose work includes the Historic Gardens and Designed Landscapes Survey.

Thanks & Acknowledgements
The Irish Georgian Society extends its sincere thanks to the below individuals and bodies who made this seminar possible.

Speakers and chairs

• Our speakers Kay Caball, Tom Dillon, Professor Declan Downey, Professor Terry Dooley, Professor David Fleming, Dr Erika Hanna, Jane O’Hea O’Keeffe, Dr John Knightly and Professor Finola O’Kane, and our chairs Donough Cahill and Jane Wales, for generously sharing their time and expertise.

Funders and supporters

• Kerry County Council, for co-delivering the seminar and for including it in the Architecture Kerry Festival 2026 programme.
• The National Built Heritage Service, Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, for funding the seminar as an Architecture Kerry Festival 2026 project and for supporting the Society’s Conservation Education Programme.
• The Heritage Council, for supporting the Conservation Education Programme through its Heritage Organisation Support Fund 2026.

Professional recognition

• The Irish Planning Institute and the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI), for recognising the seminar as continuing professional development for their members.

Venue

• Kerry Writers’ Museum, Listowel, in particular the manager, Cara Trant, cater, Maria, IT technician Shane Batten, and the wider museum team for hosting the seminar.

Finally, our thanks to everyone who attended and took part in the day’s discussions.

Find out more about the Architecture Kerry Festival at architecture.kerrycoco.ie