Harry Kernoff, R.H.A. 1900-1974

Clearly visible on the skyline of the Dublin Mountains, to the south-west of the city, the ruins of the eighteenth century Hellfire Club adorn the top of Mount Pelier, or Montpelier Hill, at 1264 feet (383 metres). Built as a hunting lodge by the Right Honourable William Connolly of Castletown, Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, around 1723, it was reputedly overrun by the Hellfire rakes soon after his death in 1729. Also going by the name of the Medmenham Club, the members were known with heavy irony as ‘Medmenham Monks’, and the Irish branch appears to have been the first in existence. Believed established in 1735 by the 1^st Earl of Rosse, Richard Parsons, the Irish Club had a brother group at West Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, founded by Sir Francis Dashwood in 1741. Claiming several homes, including the Eagle Tavern on Cork Hill, Dublin, their exploits have attracted a wealth of popular legend. There is insubstantial evidence for the stories of black masses and similar rites. It is possible that sinister regalia may have been misappropriated to spice long sessions drinking ‘scultheen’ (the Club’s signature brew of whiskey mixed with butter), gambling, and generally bringing the building down around the members’ ears. This last event took place in final fashion around 1740 when a disagreement over spilt brandy apparently led to a wholesale ignition of alcohol, with many of the recumbent ‘bucks’ too stupefied to even save themselves, let alone the Club ‘Castle’. V.S. Pritchett concludes: ‘I was brought up on the legend that the sinister little ruin on top of the Dublin Mountains which is called the Hell-Fire Club was the site of orgies; but historians now say there is no evidence. I incline still to the legend on the general ground that what goes on in cities is nothing to what goes on in the country’ (Dublin: A Portrait, Hogarth Press, London, 1991, p.55).

The building’s odd silhouette is explained by the loss of its roof in heavy winds, while still under Connolly’s stewardship. Whether or not it was the case that the Devil himself ordered the ripping of the carapace, in retaliation for the building’s erection on an ancient cairn, Connolly’s massive arched roof of stones, keyed together as in a bridge, was to hold good for another couple of centuries. Kernoff was thus able to capture the scene in the early 1930s, monumentalising the Club through use of a sweeping upwards viewpoint, encompassing the wide spring sky, in the manner of his best works of contemporary local record.