The bookcase has a pinnacled and triumphal-arched pediment that is foliated and flowered with trefoiled and quatrefoiled frets and correponds to a pattern for a romantic State Bed in an antiquarian old English fashion, published in Collection of Designs for Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, 1808, pl. 28, by George Smith, 'Upholder' to George, Prince of Wales, later George IV. Smith explained that 'There is no kind of work better calculated to produce a grand effect, so far as relates to furniture, than what is usually called Gothic, …admitting of a more abundant variety of ornaments and form than can possibly be obtained in any other style; and ... many of the mansions of our Nobility and Gentry are at this time finished in a similar taste' (Smith, op. cit., pp. 6-7).

The bookcase may have furnished the ancient house at Kilcreene, Co. Kilkenny before its appearance at Bonnettstown Hall.