Myrtle Grove, Youghal

Walter Raleigh, former resident of Myrtle Grove

Myrtle Grove is an Elizabethan gabled house in Youghal, County Cork, Ireland. The house is notable as a rare example in Ireland of a 16th-century unfortified house. It is situated in a secluded spot, close to the Collegiate Church of St Mary Youghal.[1]

History

It was home for Sir Walter Raleigh in 1588-1589. Myrtle Grove's South Gable is where Edmund Spenser is reputed to have written part of his poem The Faerie Queene. The house was acquired in 1602 from Sir Walter Raleigh's Irish estate by Richard Boyle, who later became Earl of Cork. Though remodeled twice it is still the best Tudor house in Ireland. The house was acquired by Hayman family in the 18th century.[2] [3]

In the 20th century, it was the home of Sir Henry Arthur Blake and Lady Blake. At this time, the building housed "the best collection of West Indian paintings and sketches".[4] The Blakes lived here until their deaths. They were buried in the garden.[5]

The house remains in private ownership but is open to the public on certain days of the year.

Legends

The house is reputed to be where potatoes were first planted in Europe. This is however, unlikely as potatoes were in present in Spain in 1536. There is a similar legend stating that Myrtle Grove was where tobacco was first smoked by Walter Raleigh. A servant was said to have observed Raleigh from behind and seen smoke rising from him. Thinking that Raleigh was on fire he threw a bucket of water on him to douse the fire. This is unlikely to have occurred in Myrtle Grove as the legend is also associated with several of Raleigh's houses.

"Myrtle Grove," a poem written in Spenserian stanzas by James Reiss, and published in Fugue magazine (the University of Idaho), summer/fall 2007, pp. 22-24, develops the legend that Edmund Spenser wrote portions of his great epic, The Faerie Queene, under an aureole window in the South Gable of Raleigh's house.

Notes

  1. ↑ Lewis, Samuel (1837). A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland. II. p. 728.
  2. ↑ M. Bence-Jones, A Guide to Irish Country Houses, London, 1988.
  3. ↑ J.B. Burke, Visitation, 2nd Series, II, 1855, 66.
  4. ↑ The Academy and literature. 65. 1904.
  5. ↑ Independent article by Patrick Cockburn

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