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The Grotto
Plans for Stillorgan Park Demesne are held by the National Library of Ireland and show the grotto as part
of the formal walks through elaborate gardens and parkland. Whilst the design for the house was never
completed the grotto was. It was designed by Palladian architect Edward Lovett Pearce (1695 - 1733) for
Lady Allen and presumed to have been built in his lifetime. Pearce is thought to have been the architect
of Castletown House in Kildare erected between 1722 and 1729 for William Conolly, Speaker of the Irish
House of Commons. In 1731 Pearce took a lease on a house and land in Stillorgan called Grove (later
known as Tig Lorcain Hall), now the site of the recently demolished Leisureplex.
It consists of a series of seven domed chambers each with a vaulted roof, the biggest being the central
chamber which has no roof currently. The floors are make with pebbles smoothed by years of wear.
The structure is made from brick and approximately 25 meters long. The walls have niches and roundels
where at one time there would have been statuary and plaques. The grotto is in ruins today but it is
conceivable that it was always a ruin, a folly evoking ancient Greek or Roman Architecture.
In the early 20th century when a golf club was built on Stillorgan Park it was incorporated into the links as
a hazard. There are reports that it was the hiding place for the arms landed by Sir Thomas Myles at
Kilcoole in 1914 but this is unlikely given that Stillorgan Park Golf Club were in possession at the time and
this was the year that they opened a rifle range as part of the club’s activities. There are also rumours that
it was used as a British armoury.
In the 1970s it was used for mushroom production. It is a protected structure located in a private garden
on Stillorgan Park Avenue and it is not open to the general public. Its only regular visitors are the hundreds
of nesting birds each spring.
© June Bow & Karen Poff – January 2018
of the formal walks through elaborate gardens and parkland. Whilst the design for the house was never
completed the grotto was. It was designed by Palladian architect Edward Lovett Pearce (1695 - 1733) for
Lady Allen and presumed to have been built in his lifetime. Pearce is thought to have been the architect
of Castletown House in Kildare erected between 1722 and 1729 for William Conolly, Speaker of the Irish
House of Commons. In 1731 Pearce took a lease on a house and land in Stillorgan called Grove (later
known as Tig Lorcain Hall), now the site of the recently demolished Leisureplex.
It consists of a series of seven domed chambers each with a vaulted roof, the biggest being the central
chamber which has no roof currently. The floors are make with pebbles smoothed by years of wear.
The structure is made from brick and approximately 25 meters long. The walls have niches and roundels
where at one time there would have been statuary and plaques. The grotto is in ruins today but it is
conceivable that it was always a ruin, a folly evoking ancient Greek or Roman Architecture.
In the early 20th century when a golf club was built on Stillorgan Park it was incorporated into the links as
a hazard. There are reports that it was the hiding place for the arms landed by Sir Thomas Myles at
Kilcoole in 1914 but this is unlikely given that Stillorgan Park Golf Club were in possession at the time and
this was the year that they opened a rifle range as part of the club’s activities. There are also rumours that
it was used as a British armoury.
In the 1970s it was used for mushroom production. It is a protected structure located in a private garden
on Stillorgan Park Avenue and it is not open to the general public. Its only regular visitors are the hundreds
of nesting birds each spring.
© June Bow & Karen Poff – January 2018