19 Facts About Richard Cassels

Richard Cassels, known as Richard Castle, was an architect who ranks with Edward Lovett Pearce as one of the greatest architects working in Ireland in the 18th century.

Hume had probably discovered Cassels working in London where he was influenced by the circle of architects influenced by Lord Burlington.

Richard Cassels was well versed in the concepts of Palladio and Vitruvius, but was sympathetic to the more Baroque style of architecture.

In Dublin itself, Richard Cassels worked on the Houses of Parliament with Pearce, his mentor and friend.

The untimely death of Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, aged 34, in 1733, made Richard Cassels Ireland's leading architect working in the sought-after Palladian style.

Richard Cassels immediately assumed all of Pearce's commissions and thus began designing a series of lavish country houses.

However, when it came to interiors, Richard Cassels gave full rein to his love of the more continental Baroque.

Richard Cassels took over the project and was responsible for the rococo interiors.

Richard Cassels decided to relocate the village of Westport to improve the outlook from the house to the east.

Richard Cassels made large alterations to the Carton house in County Kildare between 1739 and 1745 for the Earl of Kildare.

Richard Cassels designed this Dublin townhouse for Marcus Beresford, Earl of Tyrone, in Marlborough Street between 1740 and 1745.

The main entrance, at the centre of one of Richard Cassels's trademark 'suggested' porticoes, is on a raised piano nobile.

Powerscourt House, Wicklow, was a large country house, originally a 13th-century castle, which was completely rebuilt by Richard Cassels, starting in 1730 and finishing in 1741.

The house was originally known as Kildare House after James Fitzgerald, the Earl of Kildare, who commissioned Richard Cassels to build it between 1745 and 1747.

Richard Cassels name appears on the foundation stone of Leinster House, showing the esteem in which he was held.

Originally the main maternity hospital for Dublin, it was redesigned by Richard Cassels who transformed it into a Palladian palace, complete with a rotunda which gives the hospital its name.

Richard Cassels work includes a pigeon house, walled gardens, a farmyard, and a grotto.

Richard Cassels died suddenly in 1751 while at Carton House.

Richard Cassels gave Ireland a distinctive type of Palladianism, to appreciate which one has to consider the buildings both externally and internally: the restrained, even severe, but nevertheless, grand external facades, which do not jar the eye in the Irish landscape, give no hint of the flamboyant rococo exuberance within.