Issercleran (also known as St. Clerans), Craughwell, Co. Galway 

Mark Bence-Jones. 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. 159. “(Burke/Cole/IFR) A plain two storey late C18 house – built by the Burkes 1784 when they abandoned their ancestral castle nearby – onto the front of which a two storey bow-ended block by Sir Richard Morrison in his villa stuyle was added 1811 by J.G. Burke. The new five bay front is, as Mr McParland points out, “a highly successful derivative of Gandon’s Military Infirmary in Dublin,” with a three bay breakfront and a grouping of three arched recesses; a giant one rising the full height of the elevation in the centre, and two smaller ones on either side over the two neighbouring ground floor windows. A bold string course serves as the springing of the central arch, the lower part of which is filled with a single-storey portico. Entance hall with domed ceiling on pendentives; paired columns in recesses. One of the sons of J.H. Burke, the builder of the new block, was Robert O’Hara Burke, who perished when leading the ill-fated Burke-Wills Expedition across Australia in 1861. Issercleran was inherited 1914 by R. O’H. Burke’s niece, who was the mother of the practical joker, Horace de Vere Cole and of Mrs Neville Chamberlain. It was sold 1954 and subsequently became the home of Mr John Huston, the film director, who sold it ca 1971. The old castle remains in the Burke Cole family.”