It is usually known as "Lady Conolly's
Monument." From its being built without any apparent utility, illnatured
people sometimes call it "Lady Conolly's Folly." It is said to have been
designed by Castelli (Anglicised "Castells"), the architect of Carton,
Castletown House, and Leinster House, Kildare Street, now the Royal
Dublin Society House. It bears on the keystones of its three principal
arches the suggestive date, "1740." It was erected to give employment to
the starving people in that year, not by Lady Louisa Conolly, as is
generally supposed, but by a Mrs. Conolly, as the following information,
kindly supplied by the Marquis of Kildare, will show:--
"I find in my notes," says the Marquis, "that the obelisk was built by
Mrs. Conolly, widow of the Rt. Hon. Wm. Conolly, Speaker of the Irish
House of Commons. She had Castletown for her life, and died in 1752, in
her ninetieth year. Mrs. Delany, in her Autobiography, vol. iii, p. 158,
mentions that her table was open to her friends of all ranks, and her
purse to the poor.... She dined at three o'clock, and generally had two
tables of eight or ten people each.... She was clever at business.... A
plain and vulgar woman in her manners, but had very valuable qualities.
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