Visitors to the Country House in Ireland and Britain

Welcome and Unwelcome

Terence Dooley & Christopher Ridgway, editors

Country houses have always been magnets for visitors. In early days individuals with the correct social credentials could gain entry, while visitors such as royalty were self-invited guests. With the rise of the railway and then the motor-car, houses became accustomed to mass visits, spawning the heritage industry of today. However, houses have also attracted less welcome incomers: looters, arsonists, emigrés, revolutionaries, the politically undesirable, carpetbaggers, and even photographers whom one owner described as worse than burglars. This volume explores the many kinds of visitors who have crossed the thresholds of country houses, and how they have recorded their impressions – whether in sketches, journals, guest-books, works of fiction, or photographs. 

Terence Dooley is professor of History at MU and Director of the Centre for the Study of Historic Irish Houses and Estates. Christopher Ridgway is adjunct professor at MU and curator of Castle Howard in Yorkshire. This is the sixth volume of essays on various themes related to the country house in Ireland, Britain, and further afield that they have edited together.