Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Pain, James
PAIN, JAMES (1779?–1877), the younger, architect and builder, was son of James Pain, and grandson of William Pain [q. v.] Born about 1779 at Isleworth, Middlesex, he was apprenticed with a younger brother, George Richard Pain (1793?–1838), who was born in London about 1793, to John Nash [q. v.], architect, and subsequently the two brothers entered into business together as architects and builders. George exhibited at the Royal Academy designs in the Gothic style in 1810–14, while living at 1 Diana Place, Fitzroy Square. About 1817, when Nash designed Loughcooter Castle, co. Galway, for Charles Vereker, viscount Gort, he recommended the brothers as builders. They consequently went to Ireland. James settled at Limerick and George at Cork. While practising as architects they often carried their own designs into execution. James was appointed architect to the board of first-fruits for the province of Munster, where a large number of churches and glebe-houses were built, altered, or repaired by him and his brother. Their churches of Buttevant, Midleton, and Carrigaline, with a tower and spire, are among the best specimens of the Gothic architecture of the period. The mansion, Mitchelstown Castle, near Cork, for the Earl of Kingston, is the largest and perhaps the best of their designs; it is in the late thirteenth-century style. An engraving appears in Neale's ‘Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen,’ 4to, 1825, 2nd ser. vol. ii.
Others of their works were the gaols at Limerick and Cork; Bael's, Ball's, or Bawl's bridge, consisting of one arch, over the abbey stream at Limerick (1831); Thomond bridge, over the river Shannon at Limerick, between 1839 and 1843; and Athlunkard bridge, about a mile distant, consisting of five large elliptic arches.
George died in 1838, aged 45, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Mary, Shandon, co. Waterford. James retired, and died in Limerick on 13 Dec. 1877, in his ninety-eighth year, and was buried at the cathedral of that city.
[Neale (as above); local information; Dictionary of Architecture of the Architectural Publication Society, which adds the names of many other buildings.]