CURIOSITY:VERY CLOSE TO our family home in Tivoli in Cork was a ruined house which although officially called Woodhill, we always called "The Haunted House". It was for many years a wonderful - although forbidden - playground for me and for my friends, writes Martin Dwyer.
Our belief was that it was once owned by MP John Philpot Curran, father of Sarah Curran who was the lover of Robert Emmet, one of Ireland's patriot martyrs and we were firmly convinced that she haunted the house nightly.
We were quite wrong, I have only recently discovered. Woodhill was, in fact, the home of Cooper Penrose, an original Cork merchant prince who had founded a glass industry in Cork as his brothers George and William had founded a glass industry in Waterford. (In fact, the two styles are so similar that both are now known as Penrose Glass).
Cooper Penrose was, in fact, a great patron of the arts and had two wings specially built on to Woodhill to house his collections. There he displayed great pictures of his times by artists such as James Barry and Daniel Maclise. He had caused considerable controversy in Cork by loaning out James Barry's Venus Rising from
the Sea, because Venus was painted nude and it was hastily returned to Woodhill. Penrose also had his portrait painted by Jacques-Louis David, more famous for his iconic depictions of Napoleon.
But Sarah Curran did have a connection with Woodhill. Following the discovery of her secret love affair with Robert Emmet and him being hanged as a traitor, Sarah was expelled by her father from the family home at Rathfarnham and was given refuge at Woodhill by the Penrose family where she got the chance to mend her broken heart.
A few years later, heart all mended, Sarah married an English army officer and moved to Sicily. Thomas Moore, also a frequent guest in Woodhill, then immortalised her for all time by making her the subject of his romantic ballad, She is Far from the Land.
In 2008, the remains of the Cooper Penrose collection from Woodhill were purchased and presented to the Crawford Gallery in Cork and are now on display in a dedicated room there.