Annual Delaware Antiques Show 2019

The Irish Aesthete: Ruins of Ireland By Robert O’Byrne In 1842 German writer and geographer Johann Georg Kohl traveled around Ireland, publishing an account of his journey the following year. “Of all the countries in the world,” he observed, “Ireland is the country for ruins. Here you have ruins of every period of history . . . down to our own times, each century has marked its progress by the ruins it has left.” It is hard to judge whether Kohl was being critical or merely observational. Or indeed whether he derived satisfaction from what he had noticed on his tour. Because for some people, ruins have always exerted a particular, perverse appeal. Sixty-five years ago, English author Rose Macaulay wrote a book called Pleasure of Ruins . Reading it is like going through a roll call of the dead and somehow reveling in their demise even while mourning their loss. For almost as long as Macaulay’s book has been in print, I have been indulging in what she called the morbidity of ruins, able to satisfy my addiction in Ireland because there is just so much material on which it can feed. Some of the sites I have visited are well known and even well frequented. They’re good enough in their own way, but a popular ruin is unlikely to satisfy the appetite of a true aficionado. “Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!” proclaimed Shelley’s Ozymandias, by which he did not mean the parking lot, the coffee shop, and the visitor center. A well-preserved ruin—ivy removed, masonry cleaned up, gravel paths installed between neatly Milltown Park, County Offaly, Ireland. — 17 —