The Embassy’s building is close to the city centre, in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, surrounded by other embassies of several countries.
Home of the Embassy from June 1986, the quarter includes a consular section.
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The Residence of the Italian Ambassador to Ireland, Lucan House, is located in Lucan Village, not far from the capital city of Dublin. This is a particularly charming place with the presence of the River Liffey, personified in the character of Anna Livia in Joyce’s “Finnegan’s Wake”. Just like the villas built on the shores of the River Brenta, Lucan House is surrounded by a vast park with many historical and architectural landmarks. Apart from the monument built in honour of Patrick Sarsfield, the national hero who fell in the battle of Limerick in 1691, there are a Norman castle tower, a little church with a small graveyard and an ex-oratory which houses a thermal pool. The spring water suggests an ideal historical and cultural correspondence between the ancient springs around Lucan and the renowned tradition of thermal baths in the Veneto region. Furthermore, the Palladian style of the Villa confirms the strong links between the two geographic areas.
The first owner of Lucan House, Agmondisham Vesey Jr, modelled his villa on the Venetian villas which he visited during his Grand Tour . In order to carry out the plan of a dwelling in typical neo-classical style, he employed the services of the Scottish architect William Chambers and the decorator James Wyatt. Later, the stuccodore Michael Stapleton took part in the project.
Building began in 1772 during the Georgian age and ten years later Lucan House, with its Palladian front, emerged amidst the green. The square layout was personalized by the insertion of an oval room on the ground floor and a round room on the first floor. The “Piano Nobile” was intended for daily life; the private rooms were located on the first floor, while the basement and the present attic floor lodged the service rooms. The staircase, with a grand Venetian window, served as the main vertical link. The layout of the rooms is rational: the Wedgwood Room, the Drawing Room, the Dining Room and the Library are all accessible from the Front Hall where their doors are symmetrically placed on the walls and the hall space is arranged with a screen of two parallel colonnades. The neo-classical taste is enriched with local motifs. Such fusion of elements is highlighted by the perspective parallelism between a golden plaque, showing Apollo’s radiant face, and a sunflower, embroidered in the middle of a valuable Donegal carpet. The oval-shaped Dining Room, in axis with the entrance, is thought to have been the source of inspiration for the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. James Hoban, the Irish architect who designed it, could have visited Lucan House during his studies and training in Dublin.
The James Wyatt plans of 1792, nowadays stored in the National Library of Ireland, show exquisite candelabra amongst the neo-classical decorations of the dining room walls.
Delicate plaster work covers the pale azure walls of the luminous Wedgwood Room. The room is a magnificently harmonious space with the trimmed off edges of its tent-like ceiling and the innovative decorative approach in the style of Robert Adam. The central plaque, which is similar to Stapleton’s work in Powerscourt House and Ely House in Dublin, pictures Minerva accompanied by a soldier and a hero on his knees. The side walls, the ceiling and the chimney-piece are characterized by floral arabesques; the monochrome panels representing classical figures and putti were probably inspired by the art of Angelica Kauffmann. The head of the mythological figure of Bacchus, decorated with bunches of grapes and musical instruments, adorns the marble chimney-piece in the Drawing Room. On either side of the chimney there are a pair of Maggiolini-style rectangular folding tea tables, inlaid with rosewood and decorated with vases, neoclassical festoons and crowns of flowers. The two eighteenth-century pieces of furniture on square legs, on the opposite side of the room, display a central plaque with classical motifs.
A valuable table by Bossi, which is contemporary to the decor of the whole Residence, is located in the Library. The table’s marble shelf is enriched with a coloured workmanship of hard stones: wreaths and oval patterns highlight the artist’s refined neoclassical taste. The room is further adorned with two tapestries from the Chigi collection and ancient volumes published between the end of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. The Round Room, on the upper floor, was reserved for Mrs. Vesey who, in Ireland like in London, received literary men and women of the period in her “bluestocking” meetings.
The cultural tradition of Lucan House continued with the Colthursts who owned it until 1921. Its historical interest grew with the transfer of the title to the descendant of the King of Ireland, Charles O’Conor Don. Later, Sir William Bourke Teeling bought the house. Today it is one of the most prestigious diplomatic residences in Europe.
From 1946 onwards successive Italian Ambassadors, with their wives, contributed to the care and preservation of an historic and artistic treasure which is of great importance both for Italy and Ireland. The Villa, symbol of the deep cultural cooperation between the two Countries, is nowadays a place for illustrious guests from the world of art, politics and business to meet and exchange views and opinions. In this context, many cultural events have been hosted in the house. A gratifying acknowledgement of the work carried out was offered by the President of Ireland, Mrs. Mary McAleese, who visited Lucan House on 7th April 2006.