Cratloe Woods House, Cratloe, Clare

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. 294. “(Stafford O’Brien/LG1952) A long, low two storey gable ended C17 house one room thick. Its principal elevation, of thirteen bays, with Georgian sash windows and central three sided bow, is now the garden front; a new entrance front, in simple style with timbered porch, having been added to other side ca 1850 to provide a corridor and larger staircase, possibly to the design of James Pain, who gave the garden front bow a Tudor-Revival gable and heightened the chimneystacks, also in Tudor-Revival…. The seat of a branch of the O’Briens, who inherited the estate of Baltherwycke in Northhamptonshire through marriage to an heiress of the Staffords 1699./ Now the house of Robert Stafford O’Brien and his cousins Mr and Mrs Brickenden, who have opened the house to the public and are restoring the Victorian formal gardens overlooking the Shannon estuary, with the help of Mr Jeremy Williams, the architect.”