Regal Rolls-Royces roll up to help preserve Ireland's Georgian legacy

Irish Times

01-06-2025

A 1920s
Rolls-Royce
sweeps up a gravelled driveway, stopping all but noiselessly in front of the Palladian frontage of a beautiful house. It could be Bertie Wooster behind the wheel. It could be the Earl of Grantham.
The towering radiator grille of a Rolls-Royce – inspired by nothing less than the Parthenon – and the Grecian-derived columns and pediment of Woodbrook House, in Co Wexford, share a common architectural ancestry.
This is a meeting of more than glamorous looks, however. This is a coming together of like minds, as the Rolls-Royce 20-Ghost Club and the
Irish Georgian Society
mark 45 years of working together.
The two societies are 'sympatico', and for more than four decades, the Irish Georgian Society has been inviting members of the 20-Ghost Club – and their magnificent machines, of course – on tours around the country.
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The idea is that the tours raise money for the society which can be handed out in grants to those looking to restore and preserve Ireland's Georgian legacy.
The 20-Ghost Club during their stop at Woodbrook House, Enniscorthy, Co Wexford. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
The 20-Ghost Club – one of the world's longest-running car clubs, having celebrated 75 years last year – focuses on Rolls-Royce's early cars, with nothing younger than 1940 allowed, and with the emphasis on the very early Silver Ghost and 20hp models, and their derivatives. It was the original Silver Ghost, taking part in the RAC 15,000-mile challenge, which won Rolls-Royce its sobriquet of the finest car in the world.
The heart-stoppingly beautiful Rolls-Royce currently making its way up the driveway of Woodbrook House actually wears surprisingly modern bodywork. It's a 1938 Wraith Drophead Coupe, and is currently in the care of John and Mary Narvell of Rhode Island. 'Our car was found in a chicken coop, wearing a limousine body by Barker,' Mary Narvell says.
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It's a car with a strong connection to Ireland. 'The gentleman that owned it drove it for 20 years like that, but he always wanted a sportier body for the car. So he had this one created by coachbuilder Rod Jolley, in the style of 1930s Hispano-Suizas, and used it for many years in the South of France.' The gentleman in question is Dublin docklands developer Harry Crosbie.
The Narvells have other Rolls-Royces – one resides at the Audrain Motor Museum in Rhode Island, run in part by Jay Leno – but have brought this beautiful example back to Ireland so that Crosbie can see his old car once again.
Making a grand entrance (or exit). Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
It's far from the only car here with a fascinating history.
'Mine was an armoured car in Lawrence of Arabia!' says Ken Forbes of his 1924 Silver Ghost.
Forbes is the chairman of the 20-Ghost Club. 'The deal is, we bring members of the Irish Georgian Society in the back of our cars, and they get us into all these lovely houses that aren't all open to the public. So many places are, like this one, tucked away.'
Two cars were actually modified for that sweeping, epic film (Steven Spielberg still rates Lawrence Of Arabia as his favourite movie) and both survived. Forbes's Ghost was eventually stripped of its fake armour and given an elegant convertible four-door body by the Windovers coachmaking firm.
Jeremy Greene (at left) with his 1923 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
The 20-Ghost Club gather for a chat. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
Rolls-Royces going through multiple bodies isn't unusual: until the 1950s, Rolls-Royce didn't supply cars with a factory-made body. Instead, drivers bought the mighty straight-six engine (varying from 7.0-litres for the early Silver Ghosts up to 7.7 and even 8.0-litres, or a 7.6-litre V12 in the later Phantom III models) and a rolling chassis, and went to one of the great coachbuilding firms — Hooper, HJ Mulliner and Son, Corsica, Barker — to have a body of their own design and specification placed on top. Even in period, these cars would often have had their bodies swapped over at an owner's whim.
One that hasn't swapped its shell belongs to Strone and Alexander McPherson. It's a 1914 Silver Ghost and it wears the same body as the day it was bought. 'It was ordered by an American, who wanted to bring his new bride on honeymoon around Europe,' Alexander McPherson says.
A Spirit of Ecstasy sculpture found above the front grille of a Rolls-Royce at the 20-Ghost Club event. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
The Spirit of Ecstasy as seen from the front. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
'It has a Hooper body, and this owner used to ship it back and forth between Europe and America, going on tours around Europe for three months every year, up until 1939. In fact, it was one of the last cars to get out of Europe that year … It was laid up then until 1996, when we found it in a barn in Orange, Texas.'
Unusually for a Rolls-Royce of this era, this Ghost wears a sporty-looking body, emphasised by a radiator that's a full three inches taller than usual to give it a flatter, sportier bonnet line. It also has a 40-gallon - that's 181 litres – fuel tank, which as McPherson says: 'is great until you have to fill it up. But then we do drive it a lot on the Continent, and you can drive for a whole day and not have to look for a petrol station.'
Engine detail of one of the coveted vintage cars. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
Woodbrook House, tucked away in the rolling hills of Wexford, is that rare thing – a genuine Georgian mansion which is still a family home. It's been in the Fitzherbert family since 1998, when Giles Fitzherbert – a former British ambassador to Venezuela, but a man fiercely proud of his Irish roots – bought it and started renovating and restoring it.
It had previously been in the hands of the Blacker family since 1784, some 40 years after the house was built. As Billy Fitzherbert, son of Giles, explains, the Blackers almost lost the house at one stage. 'During the 1798 rebellion, the house was occupied by [United Irishman] John Coldough, and the house was knocked about a bit during the rebellion. Coldough had wanted to will the house to his three daughters, but he was captured after the rebellion and hanged, so the daughters never got it and the Blacker family regained the house.'
Crispin Menefee with her 1924 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
Now, Fitzherbert is determined to turn the house into a place worth visiting, not just for its beauty and the lush countryside that surrounds it, but for its environmental sensitivities. 'We're looking to have a focus on sustainability,' he says. 'My dad put solar panels on the roof here many years ago, and one of the first events we hosted was The Irish Green Gathering.'
One of the innovations for the house is actually a 'green graveyard' where people can choose to be buried in a wicker casket, with no plastics and no varnish, and instead of a headstone have a tree planted above their final resting place.
Anyone wondering about the ecological connection between a house striving to be green and a phalanx of vintage and veteran cars with enormous engines on the driveway? Well, it's often said that the greenest car is the one that's been built longest ago, and few cars on the road are older than Doug Magee's 1912 Silver Ghost, with its massive headlights.
Doug Magee with his 1912 Silver Ghost. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
Magee is from New Hampshire, and an award winner at the legendary Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance classic car event in California. He has so many significant, historical cars that he actually has his own private car museum - visitors by appointment only please.