Decantations: A Tribute in Honour of Maurice Craig by Agnes Bernelle

Rare Book

A rare collection of scholarship and literature with over forty contributions from distinguished writers, artists, art historians, architects and archaeologists for the occasion of Maurice Craig’s seventieth birthday.

Contributors include: Charles Brett, Hubert Butler, Anthony Cronin, Anne Crookshank, Mark Girouard, Bryan Guinness, John de Courcy Ireland, Benedict Kiely, Rolf Loeber, Tim Robinson, Patrick and Maura Shaffrey, John Summerson, Colm Tóibín and Mervyn Wall. Maurice Craig is the foremost authority on Ireland’s architectural history. His many books include The Volunteer Earl, a biography of Lord Charlemont, Dublin 1660-1860, an architectural history, Irish Bookbindings 1600-1800, The Life of James Gandon, Classic Irish Houses of the Middle Size, The Elephant and the Polish Question and Mausolea Hibernica.

‘If someone asked me to name the ten most interesting Irishmen of our time, I would have no hesitation in including Maurice Craig on the list. Decantations is a deserved collection of tributes reflecting his interests. Leaving it down, one feels all the richer.’ – Sean Dunne, Cork Examiner

‘This is a quite outstanding, collection of varied and scholarly essays that has given me more pleasure to review than any other for a very long time. Maurice Craig is perhaps Dublin’s outstanding man of letters at this time and an authority in such a wide range of interests and topics that he well deserves the description of polymath.’ – J.D. Hendry, Library Review

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Agnes Bernelle, one of Ireland’s best-loved stage performers, was born Agnes Bernauer in Berlin in 1923, the daughter of a renowned Jewish-Hungarian theatre impresario. Inventive and resourceful, Agnes performed impromptu cabaret in Barcelona, befriended cat burglars, summered in Cannes and received the affections of, among others, Claus von Bulow and King Farouk. In 1956 she became the first ‘non-stationary nude’ in London theatre. Her original satirical cabaret, based around the work of Brecht and Weil, became the first solo show at Peter Cook’s Establishment in Soho, and later had a three week run in the West End. In 1963 Agnes and Desmond moved finally to Ireland, where they found themselves facing into a troubled decade.