History

You are most welcome to the East Room at Plassey House. Allow us to introduce our magnificent venue.



This room has been the formal dining room at Plassey House for more than two centuries, until it became the first lecture theatre for the University of Limerick in the 1970s — at that time, the National Institute for Higher Education, in Limerick. Today, we continue the long tradition of fine dining with the East Room Restaurant.



The demesne of Plassey House is bound up with that of two prominent Limerick families, the Maunsells and the Russells. The Maunsells lived in Limerick from 1660 and were a prominent name in parliamentary politics. They were also leading members of the Limerick merchant community.

From the early Eighteenth-Century, members of the family joined the East India Company, and, in 1757, one of the family, Thomas, fought under the command of Robert Clive at the Battle of Plassey in Bengal. Victory in that battle enabled the East India Company to successfully extend its control over much of India.



Clive was rewarded by being admitted to the Irish House of Lords. Soon after, he gave the name Plassey to part of his estate near Tulla, County Clare. There is no evidence that Clive ever owned the site of the present Plassey House, but we do know it was in the ownership of Thomas Maunsell from 1770, who purchased the lands having amassed a large fortune in India. In fact, it is likely that it was he who commemorated his part in the conquest of India (and perhaps his friendship with Robert Clive), when he renamed his estate Plassey.



The Maunsells built a large water mill at Plassey in 1824 and in the early 1860s, possession of the mill and the house was taken by the Richard Russell and family, the most prominent millers in Munster at the time.



In 1905, the house was sold to the Bailey family, who owned a rubber plantation in Malaysia. They lived there until 1932, when it was then sold to Patrick Keating, a retired British Colonial civil servant. In 1962, the house passed into the ownership of the National Rehabilitation Board, and, in 1970, it became the centre of the New National Institute for Higher education. 



The identities of the architect of the original house, and that of whom redesigned it when the Russells extended it in the 1860s, remains obscure. Contextual evidence suggests William Fogerty had a part to play. He designed several other country houses and public buildings in the Limerick area, along with others in Dublin, Cork, Belfast, London and New York. The remodelled house is of an Italianate style, and a characteristic Palladianism is particularly noticeable when viewed from the North.



Today, Plassey House is at the centre of the University of Limerick. It has been preserved as an important venue for meetings and events, and it is where the President and their immediate staff are located.



Plassey House hosts some of the University of Limerick’s visual art collections, including the National Self Portrait Collection of Ireland, the Armitage Collection, and the American Cultural Institute’s O’Malley Collection, including paintings by Mainie Jellett, Evie Hone, Louis LeBrocquy, Paul Henry, Jack B. Yeats, and John Shinnors — all of which are available for viewing to our diners.



We hope you have a pleasant visit.