Projects Director, David Gundry visited Russborough House on 22nd March following the news that a fire had severely damaged the west wing of the house back in February this year. At the time of the fire the west wing was in the process of being renovated internally for use as holiday apartments. David reports from the site:

Arriving from Dublin on a blustery spring afternoon, Russborough looked wonderfully dramatic framed by the Wicklow Mountains beyond. The west wing was immediately apparent under a protective all-weather scaffold, a sad sight.

Niall Walsh, the site foreman, took me inside to see for myself the damage. The majority of the ground floor had escaped extensive fire damage but was propped throughout to guard against collapse as a result of water damage and the impact of material falling on to the floors above. In some areas ceilings have fallen although it seemed most of this material is 1970s fibreboard and cementitious plaster from when the Beit family moved here from the main house.

As we ascended the stairs you could see lines where filthy, oily, water had run down the walls. Upstairs it was a completely different situation with the majority of the first floor and roof having been destroyed by the fire. Walking around the parapet you could see that the blaze had been constrained to the centre of the roof, not burning within six feet of the walls meaning that the masonry did not feel the full intensity of the blaze, a sometimes overlooked cause of long-term damage to stonework. Fortunately the distinctive urns which decorated the parapet had also been spared and removed to a secure location until ready to be reinstalled. Although the structure of a building is often as important as the decorative finishes the interior and roof of the west wing had been renovated in the 1970s and 1990s and so little valuable historic material had been lost.

Clearly this was a terrible event but it was not hard to feel that the situation could have been even worse. The fire service did a good job at putting the fire out and must have benefited from the practice drills that had taken place in years beforehand. The adequate disaster preparation and the rapid response by the Alfred Beit Foundation and architect, James Howley, further ensured the best was made of a bad situation. However, the Alfred Beit Foundation had been intending to open the west wing for visitors during this summer but now much more extensive works are required and the repairs will take many additional months resulting in a significant loss of much needed revenue.