Carker House, Doneraile, Co Cork  P51vk38

Bence-Jones, Mark. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London. 

p. 56. “(Evans/LGI1912) A two storey C18 house, 6 bay front; two bay breakfront, with small pediment-gable; tripartite round-headed doorcase. Now derelict.” 

Section 482 in 2000, owner Tim Nagle, 086 2749166 

The Buildings of Ireland. Cork City and County. Frank Keohane. Yale University Press: New Haven and London. 2020. 

p. 23. The first notable exponent of the Palladian style in Ireland was Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, but neither he nor his successor, Richard Castle, is known to have worked in Cork, and there are no great Palladian houses here to river Castletown, Co Kildare, or Russborough. In part this may be explained by Cork’s limited links with Dublin, so that its architecture instead held tight to a conservative Anglo-Dutch idiom well into the mid C18. The Palladian formula of a central corps de logis linked to pavilions by quadrants therefore found little favour in Cork during the early Palladian period. Exceptions include the demolished Hollyhill (near Kinsale). Garrretstown was to have had a central block but only the two-storey wings were completed. Crosshaven’s wings are free-standing. 

Instead, architects, builders and patrons made do with a simple and often tentative assimilation of Palladian elements. What did find favour was the sort of compact and economical four-square block employed by Pearce at Cashel and by Castle at the central blocks of Bellinter and Hazelwood. External refinements at such houses are confined to combinations of window and door surrounds, platbands, occasionally a cornice, and in rare cases a parapet to conceal the hipped roof. Early Georgian examples include Doneraile Court and Maryborough at Douglas; Bessborough at Blackrock (Cork city), and Crosshaven date from the mid century. Late C18 examples of these high, four-square blocks such as Coolmore (Ringaskiddy), Hoddersfield (Crosshaven) and Altamira (Liscarrol) are particularly plain, with an almost complete paring back of embellishment. 

A modest expression of Palladianism is occasionally encountered in which a simple unadorned Venetian window is placed over the doorway, as at Knockane (Castlemartyr), or on the staircase at Kilmoney Abbey (Carrigaline). At Lisnabrin (near Conna) a Diocletian window, Venetian window and Venetian doorway are stacked one above the other, although here again the openings are left unadorned in an otherwise plain façade. The centre could be given further emphasis by making it advanced and giving it a pediment, as at Carker (Doneraile), Coliney (Charleville) and Assolas (Castlemagner). A modest but charming example is Park House near Doneraile, a single-pile gable-ended house with an ashlar façade articulated by a cornice and platband, the advanced centre having moulded architraves to the pedimented doorcase, first-floor Venetian window and a Diocletian window in the pediment. At Bessborough this formula is developed further, the seven-bay three-storey façade having rusticated quoins and stepped keystones to the flanking windows. 

https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/20901722/carker-house-carker-cork

Detached six-bay two-storey house over basement, built c.1780, having shallow central breakfront having cut limestone pediment, bow gable ends, and four-bay three-storey return, all built onto original front of three-storey house of c. 1700, latter apparently incorporating seventeenth-century structure at ground level to east side. House currently undergoing restoration from ruined state. Hipped slate roof to later block and return, with central rendered chimneystacks and recent cast-iron rainwater goods, and having carved limestone cornice to return. Steeply-pitched slate roof to earlier block, its east gable having stepped projecting chimneystack to east gable. Painted ruled and lined rendered walls throughout, façade of front block having cut limestone quoins to ends and moulded limestone string course at plinth level. Camber-headed window openings to front block, square-headed elsewhere, with replacement timber sliding sash windows and limestone sills. Front has nine-over-six pane windows to ground floor and six-over-six to first floor. Lunette window to pediment. Return and earliest block have six-over-three pane windows to top floor and six-over-six pane to lower floors, return having moulded limestone sills. Tripartite limestone entrance to breakfront, having plinth, square-headed doorway with timber panelled door, flanked by square-headed sidelights with moulded sills, moulded cornice, and fanlight having triple keystone. Outbuildings to rear. Brick-lined wall garden to east. Entrance gates to south comprising square-profile cut limestone piers with plinths, moulded caps, urns, and decorative wrought-iron double-leaf gates and set in rendered walls. 

Appraisal 

This is a particularly interesting example of a multi-phase country house with a continuity of building from the seventeenth century to the present day. The earlier house has a typically steeply-pitched roof, its return having fine moulded stone sills and cornice. The late eighteenth-century house built by Nathaniel and Bridget Evans to its front has a well-designed classically-proportioned façade with elegant bowed ends. The elaborate entrance gates, topped with urns, are well crafted and form an important landmark in the area. 

https://landedestates.ie/property/3247

An early 18th century house built by the Evans family and their main residence for two centuries. It was valued at £40 in the mid 19th century and occupied by John W. Evans in 1906. The roof was removed in the 1950s but the house has been recently restored.