For 700 years the Ascendancy dominated Ireland: landlords built their great houses, landscaped their parks and spent wealth gathered from rents, before disappearing in the 20th century. Making use of letters, diaries, memoirs, estate documents, inventories, travellers' tales and family reminiscences, Peter Somerville-Large examines the lifestyle of the so-called "rural sovereigns", describing the elegance, discomfort, and danger associated with castle and mansion, and the lives of many famous figures who created or inhabited the great houses.
- ISBN10 1856192377
- ISBN13 9781856192378
- Publish Date 12 June 1995
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 18 May 2017
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Vintage Publishing
- Imprint Sinclair-Stevenson Ltd
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 384
- Language English