Rathdaire House/Bellgrove at Rath, Ballybrittas (or The House that Jack Didn't build)

 Black Jack (John George) Adair born 1823 was a Land speculator and Ranching magnate born into a  family descended from Landed Gentry. 

Landed Gentry as the name suggests are those of the Gentry who owned land.

 Gentry means basically anyone who had means enough that money alone could sustain a relatively indulgent lifestyle without the need for working. 

That's not to say the Gentry didn't work. Some did and some didn't hence the term "the idle rich". Many of the Gentry were far from Gents or Gentlemen as "Black Jack's" legacy aptly indicates.

This post concerns the Adair family home of Rathdaire House, also known as Belle Grove and Bellgrove at County Laois in the Irish midlands.

Black Jack accumulated a Ranch of well over 1 million acres in Texas in the U.S.A. on the J.A. Ranch. He also built and owned Glenveagh Castle in Donegal.

 

He held substantial lands in his native Laois among his many other assets. John George Adair was obviously quite a shrewd investor and the family held at one time in excess of 10,000 acres in the County.

He had a reputation for ill manners, rudeness and ruthlessness in his business dealings. All in all he seems to have been quite an unlikeable character.

He died in 1885 and is buried in a nondescript grave at Lea Church at Rathmiles near Portarlington.

The family seat at Rathdaire House is described as a two story over basement Italianate Mansion of c. 1835. It was burned to the ground in 1887 purportedly accidentally. 

Whether it was an accident or a deliberate act we will never know for sure and the house was left standing as the ruins that are to be seen today.

The house was constructed over a previously existing building at the site and it was considerably altered during the following decades until it became an ornate Italianate style building complete with a considerable and well designed Winter Garden and a Stables with underground passages to the House.

The lands were originally purchased by Black Jack's Grandfather John. Construction of Rathdaire House was begun under his father George's auspices in the 1830's.

 George had apparently inherited estates in the West Indies and prospered from his Sugar Plantations there.

Black Jack's wife, American heiress Cornelia Wadsworth Adair had the Church of the Ascension built near Ballyadding in County Laois in her late husbands memory. 

It is described as built in a Hiberno Romanesque style and indeed the doorway is an example of rich and intricate detail and a delight to see first hand.

Below are some of the Cobble stones still lining a tunnel which ran from the Stables under and into the house. There is also what I have been told is a large water trough for the Horses.

Many thanks are due to the present owners family for permission to photograph  in the building.

Historic mapping from the OSI showing the property at different times called both Belle Grove and latterly Rathdaire House.