One of the great lost palaces of France was called Marly. Located in a little valley some four miles north-west of Versailles, Marly was designed by Hardouin-Mansart as a retreat for Louis XIV, although the scale of the place means one must use ‘retreat’ with a certain caution. The king’s pavilion stood at one end of the site from which a series of elaborate canals and pools on either side of which were six flanking houses, to be occupied by courtiers privileged enough to receive an invitation. The elaborate interiors, many of them frescoed by Le Brun, were matched by ever-more complex hydraulic waterworks. Following Louis XIV’s death in 1715, his successors visited the place less often and even before revolution broke out in France it had been largely abandoned. At the end of the 18th century Marly was sold to an industrialist who installed a cotton factory in the former palace: following the failure of this enterprise in 1806, Marly was demolished and its building materials sold. The only feature to have survived are the famous Chevaux de Marly, commissioned by Louis XV in 1739 from sculptor Guillaume Coustou. Fifty-five years later they were moved to Paris and installed on either side of the junction of the Champs-Élysées (they are now in the Louvre).
Here in Ireland, there is another so-called Palace of Marley (note the slight change of spelling), although it is otherwise known as Knockduff House in County Carlow: seemingly the reason the property sometimes carries the title of palace is because a Roman Catholic bishop was born or lived here. An old rhyme which was shared by someone who knows this part of the country well runs as Sweet Ballybrack I’ll give to Jack,
Inchaphhoka to Charlie,
Ballybeg I’ll give to Peg,
And I’ll live in the palace of Marley’ On the other hand, there are a number of places in Ireland called Palace or else Pallas (which in turn is derived from the Norman word Paleis meaning Boundary Fence so perhaps no bishop had any connection with the house at Marley. Of two storeys and five bays, its most immediately striking features are the pediment at the centre of the façade and the cut granite used for all the dressings including door and window cases. As indicated by the tall, narrow gable ends, inside the house was just one room deep, there being three on the ground floor and the same number above. The building is officially listed as dating from c.1750 but could be earlier, perhaps 1710-20. Unfortunately little of the original interior remains other than a rather crude chimney piece and at least some of the old staircase (much of the latter has fallen into serious disrepair, making it impossible to investigate the upper levels).
The Palace at Marley looks to have been built by a reasonably prosperous tenant farmer, but the question then arises: of whom was he the tenant? The Kavanaghs were for a long time the principal landlords in this part of the country, and according to the Down Survey of Ireland carried out in the mid-1650s, Knockduff then belonged to Anthony Kavanagh, a junior branch of the family. He or his successors may have lost the property (perhaps by remaining Roman Cathlic) because a map dated 1765 features the townland of Knockduff but a parcel of land on it approximating to where the house now stands is listed as belonging to ‘Lord Courtown.’ (The Stopfords, originally from England and settled in County Meath, had bought an estate on the Wexford/Carlow border in 1711: in 1758 James Stopford was created Baron Courtown and subsequently Viscount Stopford and Earl of Courtown.) so the house could be earlier than the start of the 18th century but it is hard to tell. Matters are not helped by the fact that a few years ago a renovation of the building was begun, during which the roof was re-slated and the external walls rendered. However, large openings were knocked in the rear and all the internal walls stripped back to stone, thereby removing almost all evidence of its earlier appearance. This project then stalled, and the house now stands in a vulnerable state, at risk from slipping into the same shambolic condition as the outbuildings to one side which have all but disintegrated. The grand palace at Marly has gone, remembered only through references to it in a handful of memoirs. That at Marley stands but could yet go the same way as its near-namesake.