“All that glitters is not gold,” declared The Bard in his play, The Merchant of Venice. But had he paid a visit to the Gold Salon in Carton House at Maynooth, he may have rethought his stance. A spectacularly opulent room, it’s adorned with lavish Baroque stuccowork by the famous Italian craftsmen, the Francini brothers, including their finely wrought, show-stopping Courtship of the Gods coved ceiling that almost rivals the famed Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. What has always fascinated me while visiting Carton House, is how the upper classes must’ve lived in those days made all the more decadent, of course, by an army of servants attending to their every whim.
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