James Caulfield lived from 1728 until 1799. He was the fourth Viscount of Charlemont and later became the first Earl of Charlemont. He was a man who loved his country and devoted himself to its social and cultural improvement.

He became commander in chief of the Irish Volunteers in 1780 and was known as the Volunteer Earl. In 1785 he was elected the first president of the Royal Irish Academy….an institution which is still with us

In 1746 when he as 18 years old his family sent him on a Grand Tour of Europe. At this time it was usual for young men of his class to go on the Grand Tour as part of their education. The Rev. Edward Murphy accompanied him as his tutor. The Grand Tour lasted nine years. He travelled to Holland and Germany. He then spent a year in Rome and Naples before travelling on to Greece. While he was in Greece he was totally fascinated by the Parthenon in Athens. He made drawings of the plan of this most famous building. He also spent some time in Malta.

However Italy was his favourite place and he returned to Rome in 1750. While he was there he met many famous and important people. The following people played a very important role in his future plans - the architect William Chambers, the sculptors Simon Vierpyl and Joseph Wilton and the artist and decorator and Giovanni Battista Cipriani.

Charlemont began collecting paintings, sculptures and books and had them shipped home. He expended vast sums of money on these art works. Some of these were stored in his parents house in Jervis Street in Dublin City. Others were stored at the Custom House, still in their crates, awaiting his return from the continent.

His father died and his mother remarried a man called Thomas Adderley. In 1754 his stepfather gave him some land in Donnycarney in the North of Dublin. This little estate in Donnycarney had a panoramic view of Dublin Bay, Dublin city and the Mountains beyond. Charlemont was delighted with this offer and immediately even while still in Italy began to think about building at Donnycarney. On his travels in Itraly he had met the Dutch architect, Luigi Vanvitelli, who had just completed the gigantic royal palace and the gardens at Caserta, twenty miles from Naples. In October 1754 Charlemont asked Vanvitelli to design him a garden temple. They did not come to an agreement about this job but nevertheless Charlemont continued to plan his temple in Ireland. He turned to his old Roman acquaintance William Chambers to provide the design.

Charlemont eventually returned to Ireland in 1755. He wrote in his memoirs in 1760 "I quickly perceived and being thoroughly sensible it was my indispensable duty to live in Ireland, determined by some means or other to attach myself to my native country: and principally with this view I began those improvements at Marino which have proved so expensive to me." On his return he immediately renamed his estate Marino. (Marino is an Italian town near Lake Albano, just south east of Rome.)

When his stepfather died he left him an income of £8,000 per year in his will. Charlemont immediately decided to increase the size of his estate and so he began to buy up some adjoining farms. He tripled the size of the estate at a cost of £3400. He selected a site of thirty acres as a site for his temple. He still had not appointed an architect to build the templr so he began by designing the gardens. His old tutor The Rev. Edward Murphy was not too impressed with his plans. He wrote in July 1755 that he had heard rumours of the amount of money that was being spent on Marino and that in his opinion it was not a good idea.

The original house at Marino which was left to him by his stepfather was not a very large house. This house survived until 1921 when it was demolished. It was situated somewhere near Brian Road in a housing estate which is now known as the Marino Estate. Some of the delay in building his temple can be explained by the fact that in 1758 he began to build his town house on the north side of Parnell Square in Dublin city. All the gentry at that time had to have a town house to allow them to socialise in the city. Today we would find it strange to imagine that Marino would be considered a country house since it is less than two miles from Parnell Square. His town house is still in use today and now houses the Hugh Lane Gallery of Modern Art.