Cultural Journal 11 - P-P-P-Powerscourt

Powerscourt is pretty ridiculous; I’ve stayed in hotels with fewer amenities and golf courses with less landscaping. I have a hard time imagining what it would have been like to live there in its heyday. I can only imagine that these were people who didn’t have to worry or even think about money for the most part – I’m sure it was always in there somewhere, but that kind of opulence and gigantism could only have been the result of people with SERIOUS money. The inside of the house was apparently gutted by a fire in the 70’s, but given the size (large enough to accommodate shops, two food halls and a freaking escalator) I picture large rooms filled with fine art and furniture, richly appointed bedrooms for the family members, and a warren of back halls and preparation rooms for servants (who apparently had to use a hidden walkway to remain unseen approaching the house). The residents had Italian gardens, a private lake, Japanese gardens, several fountains, and who knows what kind of wine cellar. The people in a place like that seem almost alien in my mind, utterly unconnected to anything I have experienced or can understand.
However, I think that I can connect with the Irish population who had to look at Powerscourt (and places like it). I’m pretty far removed from a poor rural farmer in Ireland, but even I feel a twinge of anger at this kind of opulence. While people scratched out a living in fields, the people who lived in this grand house were (I assume) more or less idle, concerned with grand events and social calendars, not only naming their pets (including some livestock) but burying them in a dedicated cemetery on the grounds with a better view than most people get while alive. A private waterfall and deer park for the lord of the manor while subsistence farmers eat almost the same thing day in and day out seems pretty crappy. Knowing that English lords in Ireland did nothing to help the starving Irish during the potato famine goes from sad to criminal when faced with the kind of homes the bastards lived in. It might be unfair to the family, for all I know they were an exception, but I find it unlikely in light of the extreme fussiness and expense that has gone into Powerscourt estate.