Gerry Moran profiles James Hoban – the Kilkenny man who designed the iconic building

 

All eyes are focused on the White House at the moment and will be for the next four years as we listen attentively, very attentively, to the policies and pronouncements of the 47th President of the United States, one Donald John Trump.

Several of our counties have strong connections to the occupants of the White House: Wexford can claim JFK (the first Catholic President of the U.S) whose ancestors emigrated from the county. Offaly lay claim to Barack Obama, the first Afro-American President, while Mayo gave us Joe Biden.

Kilkenny, my county, though it cannot lay claim to any of the occupants of the White House can lay claim to the building itself! And we make that claim because of one James Hoban, the architect who designed the White House in Washington.

James Hoban was born in Desart Court, near Callan, County. Kilkenny in 1758. For such a small town, Callan with a population of 2,600 approx., has produced more than its fair share of famous people: Edmund Ignatius Rice, the founder of the Christian Brothers, John Locke, the patriot and poet, Tony O’Malley, one of Ireland’s most renowned artists and Tom Kilroy, the author and playwright.
James Hoban, as it happened, was born on the same estate as Edmund Ignatius Rice in 1758. His parents, like the parents of Edmund Rice, were tenants on the vast estate of the Cuffe family, the Earls of Desart.

After some basic schooling James was apprenticed to a carpenter who worked on the estate. When Lord Desart, an unusually benevolent landlord, discovered that the young Hoban had outstanding abilities as an amateur architect, he took him under his wing and had him formally trained as a draughtsman and architect in Dublin where he briefly opened a professional practice in the early 1780s.

James Hoban excelled at his new profession and worked with some of the leading Irish architects of the time including James Gandon, architect of the Four Courts and the Custom House.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own