The idea of poking around in a stranger's house - examining the furniture, tut-tutting over the choice of wallpaper, looking for bare spots on the carpet - has a kind of twisted appeal for large numbers of people. At heart, many of us have a deep, unresolved curiosity about how other people live. If we were postmen, we would have to fight the urge to steal strangers' letters and read them.
In the case of those significantly wealthier than ourselves, this curiosity extends to where they live. After all, most of us will never be in a position to afford a property like Glin Castle, the stately Limerick pile of the Knight of Glin, or the Lyons Estate in Celbridge, now under the ownership of the Ryan family. We might, though, settle for a peek in the windows or, if it didn't mean incurring charges of trespass and attempted burglary, a wander around the rooms.
For this reason, the designation of certain properties as being of "architectural and historical interest" is a godsend to the nosy. In return for tax concessions, those in possession of remarkable and distinguished houses throw open their doors to the masses for a limited number of days each year. Most charge a small fee for the privilege of enabling visitors to say that it's all very grand, but they wouldn't want to live there.
Unfortunately, one might be forgiven for thinking that some of these people don't really want the great unwashed trotting around their houses and poking their noses in the airing cupboards. For example, should you wish to visit a certain property in south Dublin, which is, according to the list of heritage houses, open to visitors "by appointment only", you will find that the owners' telephone number is ex-directory. This places the prospective visitor in a Catch 22 situation: you are not welcome to visit without an appointment, yet you have to visit to make an appointment. Bearing this in mind, the only other option is to make contact through alternative means: using a letter, perhaps, or a friendly psychic, or a flare.
There were no such difficulties in visiting Deepwell, the lovely home of John and Ann Reihill in Blackrock, Co Dublin. This is the second year that the golden-walled Deepwell has been open to the public in this way, enabling visitors to view not only the house but also one of the finest private collections of art in the country.
Built on a hill overlooking Dublin Bay, it has been in the possession of the Reihill family for about half a century and its gardens, which stretch down to the original train tracks, were newly landscaped in 1995.
On entering the house, the visitor finds an oak-floored hall, inlaid with teak or mahogany, which stretches the full width of the house to a terrace at the rear overlooking the bay. The furniture is mainly 18th century Irish and mahogany, the walls papered with a pattern of alternate pale and darker-blue stripes and hung with paintings and George II gilt-wood mirrors, the original ceiling mouldings still in place.
On the right is a livingroom, with orange-yellow walls and an 18th-century white marble fireplace featuring representations of the muses. In common with most of the fireplaces in Deepwell, they were taken from other houses when the Reihills originally commenced refurbishing the property in the 1940s. A Louis le Brocquy tapestry hangs on the wall and a set of Chinese quartet tables sits on an intricately-woven mat; even standing on it feels like an act of desecration.
Yet here, as in almost every other part of the house, it is the paintings and sculptures that attract the eye. Deepwell is a treasure-trove of Irish art, a roll-call of familiar names: Jack B Yeats, Sean O'Sullivan, Paul Henry, Humbert Craig, Aloysius O'Kelly. In the hall, there is a painting by A.E.; in the living room, a dark Leech, once owned by the playwright Lennox Robinson, hangs near a Yeats which previously occupied a wall of de Valera's office.
To the right of the hallway is a diningroom, decorated a slightly murky green, with an 18th century D-ring table at its centre, a Roderic O'Connor nude, its subject seemingly caught in the casual act of picking her nails, on the west wall and a decorative Venetian glass chandelier with arms like lily stems blooming from the ceiling.
From the hall, a stripped pine 19th century staircase, Osborne statuary at the windows, leads down to the lower ground floor and what would once have been the servants' quarters. Once again, the floor is oak and guest bedrooms and a family room are off the main artery. At the end of the hall, the family has created a downstairs sitting room, its yellow walls lit by sunlight.
Here, also, there is more art: Yeats is present again in the form of two rose paintings; there is a Swanzy, a Nathaniel Hone, and another le Brocquy tapestry to match the one in the upstairs livingroom. There is little contemporary art, with the exception of some pieces of sculpture, a conscious decision made to maintain the integrity of the collection begun in earlier years.
Upstairs, a guest bedroom holds two 18th century beds in Regency style, a Florentine painted table, a settee in Chinese style and an intricately inlaid cabinet, possibly Venetian. A huge Victorian cabinet, its glass doors backed by green drapes, stands outside the bedroom, probably because its period and detail would make it stand out like a sore thumb in the other rooms.
But perhaps the best thing about Deepwell is that it is, like most of the houses on the heritage list, a family home. Grandchildren play on the floors and the furniture is not cordoned off with a velvet rope. Deepwell may be filled with museum pieces, but it is far from being a museum.
Deepwell, Rock Road, Blackrock, Co Dublin. Open 1-31 January; 1-30 June, 1-10 September, 9a.m.-1p.m. By appointment through Ciara Gallagher, tel. 01 2887407. Fee:House and garden, £4; garden only, £2. Children free.
