Restaurant Review - The Morrison Room @ Carton House
Wednesday 27 December 2023
“All that glitters is not gold,” declared The Bard in his play, The Merchant of Venice. But had he paid a visit to the Gold Salon in Carton House at Maynooth, he may have rethought his stance. A spectacularly opulent room, it’s adorned with lavish Baroque stuccowork by the famous Italian craftsmen, the Francini brothers, including their finely wrought, show-stopping Courtship of the Gods coved ceiling that almost rivals the famed Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. What has always fascinated me while visiting Carton House, is how the upper classes must’ve lived in those days — made all the more decadent, of course, by an army of servants attending to their every whim.
Carton House was the home of the aristocratic Fitzgerald family, and the various Earls of Kildare from ‘Silken Thomas’ the 10th Earl, to the 20th Earl who was the first Duke of Leinster. Queen Victoria stayed in the exquisite Chinese Boudoir, while in later days Grace Kelly and her Prince Rainier trod the floors here, not to mention Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull when they were an item.
lucindaosullivan.com
First Published In The Sunday Independent