Bantry House and Gardens was one of the first private houses in Ireland to open to the public. It is situated on the edge of Bantry overlooking the bay. The owner is an enthusiastic patron of music and there are many fine concerts and music festivals held in the house.
Bantry House has been open to the public since 1946. It is the ancestral home of the Earls of Bantry and is still lived in by their descendant Egerton Shelswell-white and his family.
The White family first settled on Whiddy Island in the 17th century but purchased a small Queen Ann house called Blackrock on the mainland. This was to become known as Bantry House.
About 1820 Richard, the first Earl of Bantry, enlarged the house by adding the two drawing rooms. It was his son, then Viscount Berehaven, who travelled extensively and amassed an eclectic collection of tapestries, paintings, furniture and artefacts.
He also took on a further extension of the house, adding the two wings, and the construction of the gardens, terracing the land around the house and adding the two stable courtyards. The one surviving gate lodge also dates from that time.
In the 20th century it became apparent that the survival of an estate such as Bantry was very precarious. Land was sold and also some of the contents of the house. About 100 acres of land remain, of which approximately 46 acres are gardens and accessible woodland.
The structure of the gardens dates back to the second Earl of Bantry's travels. Both he and Mary, his wife, travelled with notebooks and sketchbooks (now in the Archive at University College Cork) at hand, which helped to transform the small house at home into a "palazzo"comparable to those he had seen on the continent.
The 'Cardinal Rule' to be applied was that house, garden and site must be a unit, as if one could not have been conceived without the others.
The terraced the land around the house, seven terraces in all, with the house sitting on the third terrace. A parterre facing south surrounding a wisteria circle which again surrounds a fountain was also created. From there rise the famous Hundred Steps, a monumental
Today, the house or parts of it can be rented for weddings, functions and special events.
