Interior

Carnegie Meeting Room, 53 Upper Mount Street

This ground floor room would originally have been used as a formal reception room. Photo: 2013.

Carnegie Meeting Room, 53 Upper Mount Street

This ground floor room would originally have been used as a formal reception room. Photo: 2013.

Spiral Stairs, top 53 Upper Mount Street

The servant quarters were accessed via a small backstairs that was separate from the formal areas of the house. They lead to the very top of the house where the smallest rooms were located. Photo: 2013

Spiral Stairs, top 53 Upper Mount Street

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Georgian houses were typically four or five stories high. The kitchens, laundries and service facilities occupied the basement. The ground floor was used for formal reception rooms and sometimes a dining room. The rooms on the second floor were used for entertaining, while the bedrooms were on the fourth floor. The servant quarters were located at the very top of the house in the smallest rooms under the roof. Access to these rooms was via a small backstairs that was separate from the formal areas.

The Georgian period was the age of house decoration and the interiors were usually furnished to provide as much comfort as the owners could afford. Developments in technology at the time meant soft furnishings and a variety of materials and designs became increasingly available, and affordable. Hand-woven Irish carpets were fashionable, as the colours, designs and reputation for durability were popular.

Equally, rich curtains provided extra insulation. Together with carpets and other soft furnishings, they reduced the need for wood panelling as insulation on the entire wall. The upper parts of walls were painted or wallpapered and were decorated with plasterwork.

Walls were painted with a pigmented chalk and binder mixture known as distemper. Pigment was quite expensive and many people used more intense colours to display their wealth and status in society.

Plasterwork

Irish Georgian houses, great and modest, are distinguished by the extraordinary treasure of stucco or plasterwork. Although the exterior of the Georgian houses were uniform and rigid in style, the greater emphasis on making more comfortable living areas led to more decorative rather than formal features inside.

Many of the early stuccodores were foreign born, but as the eighteenth century progressed Irish craftsmen, like Robert West and Michael Stapleton, began to replace them. Stapleton (1747-1801) was considered the most skilled stuccodor working in the neoclassical style that dominated the interior plasterwork at the end of the eighteenth century. This style was characterised by basic geometric designs of circles, squares and octagons that were then elaborated with details of vases, urns and paterae done in relief. Repetition of patterns was typical of the period.

Ceiling centres and ceiling roses emerged as a decorative feature during the Georgian period. Previously, these had been used to protect the ceiling from heat damage caused by candle or gas lighting. This way, the owner only had to replace the centre if it was damaged, and not the entire ceiling. However, ceiling centres during the Georgian period, and running right up to the Art Deco period, came in all sizes, shapes and designs to complement the decorative Georgian interiors.

Plaster Corbels were widely used in Georgian homes, primarily as decorative supports. They add elegance to the end of beams and were sometimes used as shelf supports. Likewise, coving or cornicing that covers the wall-ceiling join also helps to create an elegant style.

Mass production resulted in increased popularity of interior plasterwork.

Dado Rail

The Dado Rail runs horizontally along the walls, roughly one third the height of the ceiling. Traditionally this was used to protect the walls from furniture and for this reason it is sometimes known as a chair rail.

Fireplaces

Fireplace panel: figure detail

Detail of fireplace in 53 Upper Mount Street.

Fireplace panel: figure detail

Detail of fireplace in 53 Upper Mount Street.

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Fireplace panel: floral detail

Fireplace panel detail at 53 Upper Mount Street.

Fireplace panel: floral detail

Fireplace panel detail at 53 Upper Mount Street.

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The visitor to the Georgian house can enjoy the impressive marble fireplaces that epitomise the elegance of the era. One of the central facets to Georgian design was that everything had to be proportionate to everything else. The Scottish architect Robert Adam, one of the most fashionable architects of the Georgian time, was a great advocate of this idea of perfect proportions and he greatly influenced the traditional fireplace.

He made his mark in the world of design by ensuring that every item complemented another, no matter how small or insignificant. The Georgian fireplace would be built in proportion to the windows, the furniture and the size of the room. While earlier periods saw the fireplace as a functional part of the interior used for cooking, it became more than this during Robert Adams time. It became the focal point of the room. As the kitchen had now become a separate, integrated area of the main house, the fireplace was no longer needed for cooking but could be enjoyed for its decorative features by the owners and their guests.

Entrance hallway, 53 Upper Mount Street

Photo: 2013

Entrance hallway, 53 Upper Mount Street

Photo: 2013

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Hallway

Graceful, wide staircases characterised Georgian hallways. Light pours in the large sash window along the stairway, an important feature before the dawn of electricity.

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