Dictionary of Irish Architects 1720 - 1940

Painter in water-colour and crayon and topographical artist, for biography of whom see W.G. Strickland, A Dictionary of Irish Artists (1913), I, 25-28.(1) Barralet executed a number of drawings of buildings which were engraved as plates in Grose's Antiquities of Ireland and Milton's Views of Seats. He also drew the Rutland Fountain in Merrion Square, which was engraved by J.C. Stadler. When a competition was held in 1791 for the best plan for laying out the Merrion Square gardens, the winner, BENJAMIN SIMPSON BENJAMIN SIMPSON , nurseryman of College Green, was said to have owed his success 'in a very good degree to the assistance of that very ingenious artist, Mr James Barralet'.(2) As an artist who had painted scenery for the Crow Street Theatre, might Barralet be the otherwise mysterious - BARRADETTE  BARRADETTE or Barradotte who is credited with the design of the folly ruin at Belvedere, Co. Westmeath? John James Barralet is not to be confused with his brother, John Melchior Barralet, who lived and worked in London.



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(1) Strickland gives Barralet's dated of death as 1812, but according to www.familysearch.org Barralet was born in 1747 and died on 16 January 1815.
(2) Dublin Chronicle, 11 June 1791.