Adare Manor borrows it’s name from the nearby village of Adare complete with it’s delightful thatched roof cottages, lively pubs, and antique shops. The Manor “structurally” as it exists today was not begun until 1832. The Second Earl of Dunraven and his wife, Lady Caroline Wyndham, were living in a Georgian house built in the 1720's by Valentine Quin, grandfather of the first Earl. But Lord Dunraven, crippled with gout, was unable to participate in the usual activities of a landed gentleman of leisure, so Lady Caroline devised the idea of a new manor house to give him something important to do. As it turned out, it was a magnificent suggestion: the building of the house provided labour for the surrounding villagers during the terrible potato famine that devastated the country during the mid-19th century. Though Lady Caroline went to great lengths to establish the myth that Adare Manor was planned entirely by her husband without an architect, it is fairly certain today that much of the design work was completed by James Pain who, along with his brother George Richard, had been commissioned to design numerous public buildings and country homes. The actual construction was supervised by James Connolly, a local mason, until his death in 1852. History continued....
