The big Irish House has haunted the Irish landscape and Irish imagination for nearly four hundred years. Gaelic poets cursed or celebrated its power. Irish historians have debated its role for good or ill in the countryside. And generations of Irish novelists have made it a central presence in their books. In this anthology the idiosyncratic life in the Big House is portrayed in a chronological structure creating a documentary history full of splendour and tragedy. This fascinating book is illustrated with contemporary drawings, engravings, maps and paintings and by Thomas Pakenham s evocative photographs.