Image: Emo Court

Description: Emo Court, located in the village of Emo in County Laois, Ireland, is a large neo-classical mansion, formal and symetrical in its design and with beautifully proportioned rooms inside. It was designed by the architect James Gandon in 1790 for John Dawson, the first Earl of Portarlington. It is the only house to have been designed by Gandon. Other buildings by him include the Custom House and Kings Inns, both in Dublin. The approach to Emo Court today begins through a rather unobtrusive gateway. Within the grounds, a road runs for some distance through a beech wood which opens suddenly to give a view to the right of the house and the Wellingtonias which now line an abandoned avenue. Visitors are directed to a car park at the side, so that the house and its trees are preserved free from cars and from a goodly share of the 21st century. To the left are coach houses and servants’ quarters, to the right beautiful mature trees and in the centre the entrance front, dominated by a pediment supported by four graceful Ionic pillars. The Earl’s coat of arms fills the pediment and, to left and right, are 18th century friezes depicting agriculture and the arts. Heraldic tigers guard the steps. The gardens at Emo are magnificent and they too have been brought back to the splendour of their past, with formal areas, woodland walks, abundant statuary and a lake. They are divided into two main areas. The Clucker, which contains some fine and rare specimen trees and a vast range of azaleas and rhododendrons and other shrubs. This part of the garden is at its magnificent best in late Spring. The Grapery is an arboretum though which wind a series of pathway, each opening to vistas across the surrounding Slieve Bloom mountains or towards the house. This is a marvellous place to visit in Autumn especially when it is a blaze of dramatic colours.
Title: Emo Court
Credit: originally posted to Flickr as Emo Court & Gardens, Co. Laois, Ireland
Author: Tom Cosgrave
Permission: This image, which was originally posted to Flickr.com, was uploaded to Commons using Flickr upload bot on 00:47, 20 June 2008 (UTC) by Jonjames1986 (talk). On that date, it was available under the license indicated. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. You are free: to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work to remix – to adapt the work Under the following conditions: attribution – You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). share alike – If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 CC BY-SA 2.0 Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 truetrue
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