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This impressive two-storeyed room with a black and white chequered floor, was designed by Sir Edward Lovett Pearce. The Ionic order on the lower storey is similar to that of the colonnades outside and at gallery level there are tapering pilasters with baskets of flowers and fruit carved in wood. The coved ceiling has a central moulding comprising a square Greek key patterned frame and central roundel with shell decoration.

Above the black Kilkenny marble chimney-piece there is a wall painting of a view of Leixlip Castle and the salmon leap. It has been attributed to the Irish landscape painter Joseph Tudor (1685?-1759). Leixlip Castle was also the property of the Conolly family. On either side of the chirnney-piece are eighteenth century Irish peat buckets (donated by Mrs Rose Saul Za1les of Washington).

The portrait is of Alessandro Galilei by Giuseppe Berti and in the background may be seen the façade of the church of Saint John Lateran, Rome, which was Galilei's most famous work. The portrait is signed and dated 1735 (purchased by the Irish Georgian Society in memory of Brian Molloy).

The bust of George Washington is a version of the well known one by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828). It was bought for the house in the 1780s .and indicates the influence of the American War of Independence and the strength of the Whig 'patriot' tradition in Ireland among some of the Anglo- Irish.

In the niches are a pair of marble busts of the Earl and Countess of , Dartrey by Lawrence McDonald carved in Rome in 1839. They came from Dartrey in County Monaghan which has been demolished (bequeathed to the Irish Georgian Society by Lady Edith Windham of Dartrey). The eighteenth- century organ was originally in the chapel of Dr. Steevens' Hospital, Dublin (restored by the Cleveland Chapter of the Irish Georgian Society).

All text copyright of Dr. Paul Caffrey. Copies of the guidebook are available from Dr. Caffrey at caffreyp@ncad.ie