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E-mailSweet Avondale
California redwoods in Ireland? Yes, you can find a fine grove at Avondale Forest Park in County Wicklow about an hour's drive from Dublin. Avondale, now a national historic site and home of the Irish Forest Service, was the family estate of Charles Stewart Parnell, whose brilliant career as national leader in Ireland's fight for Home Rule was wrecked by the revelation of his liaison with the married Katherine O'Shea.
To visit Avondale and experience its green lushness is to understand the wellspring of Parnell's attachment to the land (he was president of the Land League - a movement to make tenants owners of the lands they farmed) and by extension to the nation. Established in 1904 as the center of reforestation in Ireland, it contains one of Europe's finest collections of trees; elm, beech, oak, spruce, maple, fir, larch, ash and other species were brought from all over the world and thrive here in this beautiful valley.
The great California redwoods are not the only American association at Avondale, for Parnell's mother, the beautiful Delia Stewart, was the daughter of Commodore Charles Stewart, "Old Ironsides" of War of 1812 fame. She came from Boston and Washington to the then 4,000-acre Wicklow estate in 1835 as a bride of 18. She bore nine of her 11 children there, but found the isolation oppressive, and left them and the estate as often as possible.
Avondale House, the estate's mansion, was built around 1777 by Samuel Hayes, a Parnell cousin, whose enthusiasm was the cultivation of trees. As mansions go, the house is simple - the land was of more interest to Hayes than the house. However, its very plainness is pleasing to modern eyes.
Of neo-Georgian design, the mansion's white facade is decorated with four medallions enclosing curls of light blue plaster ribbons, and its light and airy interior is a combination of pastel walls, white plaster floral ceiling decorations, and dark wood floors and doors.
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