Demesne for offices, shops, restaurants, sixscreen cinema and 108 detached houses on the site, which is being promoted as "a natural extension" to Celbridge, has been criticised by local planners for being "on a city scale rather than a more acceptable town scale." The plans ultimately failed to materialise. Houses outside the town Castletown House Castletown House is situated at the end of an avenue extending from the main street. It is Ireland's original and largest Palladian country house. Building commenced in 1722 by William "Speaker" Conolly (1662–1729), Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, who came under the influence of the Neo-Palladians, whose adherents included Alessandro Galilei, believed to have designed the main house, and Edward Lovett Pearce, thought to have designed the entrance hall and the long gallery in its original form, as well as the colonnades and wings. Pearce did commissions for William Conolly before his speculated involvement with Castletown. The house was inherited by Tom Conolly (1738–1803) in 1758 and the interior decoration was finished by his wife Louisa Lennox (greatgranddaughter of Charles II of England and Louise de Keroualle) during the 1760s and 1770s. Two of the best known features of Castletown are the Long Gallery (an long room decorated in the Pompeian manner in blue and gold), and the main staircase (which is cantilevered and made of white Portland stone). Conolly's Folly (also known as "The Obelisk") is an obelisk structure. It is built to the rear of Castletown House which contains two follies, both commissioned by the widow of Speaker William Conolly to provide employment for the poor of Celbridge at a time when famine was rife. As such these monuments serve no real purpose, instead they were dedicated to battles in the 16th century. The Obelisk was built in 1739 after a particularly severe winter. Designed by Richard Castle, it is 42 metres high and is composed of several arches, adorned by stone pineapples and eagles. The main avenue from the town is no longer accessible by vehicular traffic, which must enter the grounds from the roundabout off the M4. Celbridge Abbey Celbridge Abbey was the childhood (1688–1707) and later adult (1714–1723) home of Bartholomew Van Homrigh's daughter Esther (1688–1723), the ill-starred lover of Dean Swift. The poem in which Swift fictionalised her as "Vanessa" "Cadenus and Vanessa" (1713) was written seven years before he visited her in Celbridge in 1720. A