Model Railway Museum

This cottage, now sensitively renovated, was built around the beginning of the 19th century by Richard Wogan Talbot. It is thought to have been a shooting lodge. It was designed as a Cottage Orné (“decorated cottage”), a rustic style which developed firstly in England out of the Italian picturesque style of painting in the 17th century. This style used shaped thatched roofs, elaborate woodwork, and the surrounding landscape to create the picturesque effect.

The Talbot family have lived for over 800 years in Malahide. Sir Richard de Talbot, a Norman knight, was granted lands here in 1185 for services to the king, Henry II. Richard Wogan Talbot, the 2nd Baron, joined the British army at an early age and fought in several European wars. He was elected to Westminster in 1806 and served until his retirement in 1833.

In the early 1920s the Kirker family, well-known in the Malahide area, moved into the house. Dr John Gilbert Kirker served as President of the Royal College of Physicians and went on to help found the Irish Epilepsy Foundation in the 1960s, now called Brainwave. The Kirker’s had two donkeys, Salt and Pepper, who were known by all the children around the area. The family left the house in 1999.