Episode 2: Mount Vernon, Co. Clare

On the craggy shores of the Burren in Co. Clare sits the Mount Vernon, built in 1788 by Colonel William Persse and named Mount Vernon to celebrate his friendship with the US president George Washington. Manchán discovers the inspiration its later inhabitants – Lady Gregorgy, Hugh Lane and WB Yeats found on within its walls

Mount Vernon has battled the elements of the Atlantic Ocean on the ragged shores of the Burren in Co. Clare since 1788. It was built by Colonel Persse a friend of the first president of the United States, George Washington. Persse’s grand nephew, Ireland’s greatest art collector, Hugh Lane, lived in the house in 1880. When the Lusitania was torpedoed and sank in 1915, Lane was on board and sank with the ship and his latest collection of Monet, Ruben and Rembrandt paintings. The house was passed onto Lane’s aunt, Lady Augusta Gregory, one of the most pivotal figures in the Irish cultural renaissance. It was in Mount Vernon, Manchán will discover, that she entertained WB Yeats, George Russell, Sean O’Casey, JM Synge and George Bernard Shaw and he’ll find out why Yeat’s dedicated his famous poem to Gregory’s son – Robert Gregory.