Lis-na-Carraig

A house erected by John Bentley (1827-1906) representing an important component of the mid nineteenth-century domestic built heritage of south County Dublin with the architectural value of the composition, 'a very handsome villa with extensive out-offices [completed] after designs by Mr. Carson [Edward Henry Carson (1822-81)]' (The Dublin Builder 1st June 1862, 140), confirmed by such attributes as the compact near-square plan form centred on a Classically-detailed doorcase demonstrating good quality workmanship; and the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression with the principal "apartments" defined by bipartite or polygonal bay windows. Having been well maintained, the form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior where decorative plasterwork enrichments highlight the artistic potential of a house having historic connections Edward Albert Seale (1866-1943) '[of] Mount Aventine Foxrock' (The Dublin University Calendar 1895, 707); and Edmond McCartan-Mooney (1856-1933) 'of Lisnacarrig Foxrock' (The Irish Law Times 13th May 1933, 138). NOTE: Lis-na-Carraig was the home of the Right Honourable Sir Henry Augustus Robinson KCB (1857-1927), Vice-President of the Local Government Board for Ireland (appointed 1898; retired 1922), who, in "Memories Wise and Otherwise" (1923), describes arriving at the house during Easter Week 1916 to find his 'wife and daughter-in-law sitting on the steps listening to the booming of the big guns over Dublin' (Robinson 1923, 238). His son, Sir Christopher Henry Lynch-Robinson (1884-1958), author of "The Last of the Irish R.M.s" (1951), describes an episode during the Irish Civil War (1922-23) when 'sitting in [the large sitting-room-hall] one evening after dinner...two men burst into the hall and proceeded, without so much as by your leave, to open fire on us with revolvers. My father and I pulled out our automatics at once and fired back, whereupon the two men rushed past us and dived out onto the lawn through the two big windows, glass and all... I cannot explain why, but I can only record that nobody was hit, and that most of the shots went into the ceiling' (Lynch-Robinson 1951, 171). Sir Henry and his son were threatened with court martial 'for resisting the soldiers of the Irish Republic in the execution of their duty' and, acting on behalf of the pro-treaty forces, they were visited the next day by Michael Collins (1890-1922) who advised them that the Provisional Government was in no position to protect anyone and to 'clear out and come back later when things had settled down a bit'. Sir Henry ultimately sold Lis-na-Carrig and retired to Ealing.