Trying to pin down Christopher Moore is no easy task. He barely exists on the internet or Instagram and he often seems to be in at least three places at once. He might be found in Burford, Oxfordshire, at Greyhounds, the ancient house and garden he restored with his partner, Michael Taubenheim, but more of his time is spent at his Irish home, Dangan, a picturesque cottage orné on the banks of the Nore, in County Kilkenny. Otherwise, he might be spotted on a ferry in the middle of the Irish Sea.
Describing him as an Irish architectural historian, conservationist, paint expert and lecturer is accurate, but it doesn’t quite capture the spirit that moves him – a passionate love of Ireland, its past and the atmospheric houses and places he has known through his life. When it comes to summoning period interiors from little more than a shell, assembling rooms that feel as if they have been there forever, with layers that tell a tale, his quick-silver sleight of hand is remarkable. But he can just as easily pack the perfect picnic, conjure flowers for a friend’s wedding or produce lunch for 30 visiting architecture buffs – all without breaking a sweat.
After a history of art degree at Trinity College Dublin in the 1980s, Christopher became curator at Castletown in County Kildare. Later he joined the National Trust in Northern Ireland, before working on private historic-house restorations. More recently, the Irish Office of Public Works has been astute enough to secure him for several of its larger and more complex conservation projects, including Kilkenny Castle, Doneraile Court and now Ormond Castle. These tasks involve reimagining and adding to collections, scouring auction rooms and tracking down furniture, carpets and paintings, as well as ephemera relating to the family who once lived there. Choosing paint colours, conserving textiles, upholstering sofas, hanging pictures – all are part of his day’s work. ‘Piecing the fragments together, summoning that damaged beauty, capturing the essence of an Irish house, that peculiar softness – bringing it all alive,’ Christopher says of his endeavours.
From earliest days growing up near the River Liffey just outside Dublin, he became fascinated by nearby Woodville and its old walled garden, the rented home of five Miss Hamilton sisters, including the artistic Letitia and Eva, all of whom were then in their eighties. Catching the tail end of an era, he absorbed the creative atmosphere, eccentric household, their wonderful family furniture, all cobbled together on a shoestring. There were de lightfully shambolic gatherings, tennis and tea parties with visitors of all ages. When the sisters died the house was abandoned – Christopher and his brothers haunted the empty rooms until one day the façade was pulled down as they looked on, but a seed had been sown.
For years he searched for a place of his own where he could bring all the threads of his Irish life together – a place to re create that lost world of Woodville and the Miss Hamiltons. ‘I wanted something interesting, worthy and atmospheric,’ he recalls. Eventually, the lush Nore valley, accessible from the ferry and Dublin, ticked all the important boxes.
Dangan was not the architectural wonder he longed for, but it was unlisted and ancient, and clearly had always been loved. It would be a place to summon impressions and elements from all the Irish houses and gardens he had known and cherished – a place where the structural salvage gathered over many years could frame his collections.
At every step, around every corner, there is something to entrance the eye and stimulate the senses at this rustic idyll. From the first approach through a sham Gothic-arched gateway, scale is turned on its head: instead of a stern imposing mansion, a low rambling house comes into view, surrounded by a tangle of wisteria and vines. Broad sash windows painted a retiring dark green look out across rolling lawns to the glinting river, which can be seen from every window.
This was the ‘picturesque’ ideal of the artistic widow, Mary Bushe, who retired here in the mid-1780s. Sister of the politician Henry Grattan, she remodelled an earlier building in the fashionable cottage orné style, with thatched roof, ornamental trellising and rustic details. She built a hermitage, a mossy subterranean grotto, a tiny greenhouse and carefully laid out shrubberies with winding walks that artfully lead the visitor over a bucolic bridge to an island, where Christopher has been planting a sea of anemones and cyclamen.
The late 18th century saw a flowering of the decorative arts in Dublin, and Christopher’s rooms shine with wonderful pieces from the period. Elegant mahogany furniture, delightfully rococo Samuel Dixon bird-and-flower paintings, Irish delft, shell pictures, lovely portraits and mirrors all bring the rooms alive. It feels easy and lived in – the bare floorboards, old rugs and lack of curtains give a relaxed, unstuffy feel. Fine Kilkenny marble fireplaces and shining grates glimmer with comforting stoves on the go.
In the sitting room off the kitchen, the eye is drawn to Irish portraits by William Orpen and Seán Keating: everywhere are the glorious lively paintings of the Hamilton sisters. Things have come full circle.
Tea is being laid out on a tray. We go out through the conservatory of pelargoniums to a table in the garden. A charming, capacious curved seat draws the eye to the river. A ‘Lady Hillingdon’ rambling rose climbs up the false acacia tree and the ferny foliage of shining ligusticum spreads through the gravel.
Christopher is darting about. He pauses as he pours the tea, as if struck by a thought: ‘Of course, what sold it to me was the river with its island and the ever-present sense of moving water. I grew up beside the Liffey and this was a version of that... Perhaps we always end up, or want to end up, where we started’
A version of this article originally appeared in the August 2025 issue of ‘The World of Interiors’. Subscribe today
