David Carnegie Andrew Agnew

“ It was the earnest wish of Sir William Wilde that Beranger’s sketches, so rich in suggestions for our living artists, and so important to the antiquary and the genealogist, should be published in a volume; those admirable and accurate sketches, preserving with such fidelity for the present age, the appearance and characterestics of Irish architectural remains, as seen existing a hundred years ago. Probably more than two hundred of these interesting works of art may still be forthcoming. He would have undertaken the work himself, even at his own expense, had health and life been spared to him. ”

“ Beranger, becoming enamoured of the interesting and romantic remains of architecture and fortifications of which he had made drawings, entered the department of historical and antiquarian study and authorship ”

“ Sir William Wilde’s Memoir, continued by his widow, Lady Wilde, was not published as a volume till 1880. Without attempting to master its artistic details, I note what is personal. Gabriel Beranger was born in Rotterdam in 1729, and came to Dublin in 1750, when he married his cousin; he married, secondly, another refugee lady, Miss Mestayer. He became Assistant Ledger Keeper in the Exchequer Office, and latterly he lived in comfort upon a legacy from his brother-in-law, Colonel Mestayer, who had made a fortune in India. ”