The Wonderful Barn and Connelly's Folly
I searched all over the Internet to try to find out what this strange building, at right, is. Driving down the N4, the main road from Dublin towards Galway, motorists will pass it just across the county line into Kildare. I was never sure whether it was a castle, a monument, a cathedral's ruin, or what.
Getting a closer look required a little back-lanes drive between the towns of Celbridge and Maynooth. In an empty field, arch piles on arch about 100 feet in the air. Georgian features like pots and pediments adorn the neoclassical fascade. A plaque with the date 1740 escaped the graffiti that tells another, much later, story.
This being Ireland, we naturally headed for the pub to warm ourselves, after the brief visit that the hard February chill allowed us. The refresherie in the nearby Setanta House Hotel is called "The Folly," a picture of the monument we'd just visited etched into the mirror behind the bar.
At that pub, we learned the story behind the structure that came to be known as Connelly's Folly. In 1739, there was a terrible famine. Hundreds of poor farmers were driven under, and left without means to support themselves. So the next year, this building was designed and constructed not for any purpose of its own, but solely as a public works project to provide employment. Visit the Setanta House, and you can discover the full story for yourself.
