St. Austin’s Abbey, Tullow, Co Carlow
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. 303. “(Doyne/IFR) A High Victorian house, rather similar to Derrylahan Park, built ca 1858 by Charles Henry Doyne, younger son of Robert Doyne, of Wells, to the design of sir Thomas Newenham Deane and Benjamin Woodward. Burnt ca 1920.”
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
p. 35. Designed by Sir Thomas Newenham Deane and Benjamin Woodward 1858-1859 for Charles Henry Doyne. The house was burnt c. 1921 and the ruin has since been partly demolished. The stable block and some fragments of the house still remain.
Remains of detached French Gothic style country house, c. 1856. Burnt down c. 1921. Now in ruins. Designed by Benjamin Woodward. Group of detached outbuildings to site.
Detached three-bay single-storey gate lodge with dormer attic, c. 1856, with hipped roof. Designed by Benjamin Woodward. Renovated and refenestrated, c. 1990.
Record of Protected structures:
Gatelodge of St. Austin’s Abbey, Tullow. Townland: Tullowbeg.
The gate lodge to St Austin’s Abbey dates from circa 1856 and was designed by Deane and Woodward. It is built of large, squared blocks of granite placed at random. It has a single storey of three bays with an enclosed porch and an exceptionally, high-pitched roof of natural slate, with granite brackets under the eaves, granite dormer windows with high-pitched roofs and exceptionally tall, granite stacks. The ground-floor windows have single granite mullions. uPVC windows have been inserted recently. The building is in a French gothic revival style very similar to St. Ann’s Schools in Molesworth Street, Dublin which were demolished in the 1970s.
Importance: regional, architectural, artistic.
St. Austins Abbey,
Tullow . townland: Tullowbeg
The house was designed by the partnership of Deane and Woodward circa 1856 and burnt in 1921. It is Venetian gothic in style and built of squared blocks of randomly set granite ashlar. It is increasingly being covered with ivy which is obscuring the finely carved granite details including a balcony, pointed windows and the remains of a granite staircase. Though a ruin this is a very important architectural site.
https://archiseek.com/2012/1859-st-austins-abbey-tullow-co-carlow/
St. Austin’s Abbey was built in the 1850’s by Charles Henry Doyne youngest son of Robert Doyne. The architects were Sir Thomas Newenham Deane and Benjamin Woodward. The house was gutted by fire in 1922 and mostly demolished
Jimmy O’Toole, The Carlow Gentry: What will the neighbours say! Published by Jimmy O’Toole, Carlow, Ireland, 1993. Printed by Leinster Leader Ltd, Naas, Kildare.
Chapter: Doyne of St. Austin’s Abbey.
p. 89. Only three houses were torched by the IRA , and two of them had more to do with preventing unoccupied houses being used as bases by the Black and Tans, and later by the Free State Army, rather than any vindictiveness against landlords.
Two of the houses destroyed – St. Austin’s Abbey in Tullow, and Kellistown House – were owned by the Doyne family, while Myshall Lodge was the former seat of the Cornwall-Bradys. The houses in Tullow and Myshall had been unoccupied for several years before the outbrea, of the War of Independence, while Kellistown House was rented by the spinster Pack- Beresford sisters, Annette and Elizabeth. The burning of Kellistown, the only one of the three to be rebuilt, was the result of an attempt by the sisters to alert the RIC about the presence of an IRA unit resting up while on active service. The burned-out shell of St. Austin’s remains, while the ruin of Myshall Lodge was demolished.
Far from having any concerted plan to destroy the homes of landlords, the IRA in County Carlow at any rate, concentrated their attacks on military and police installations, and the disruption of communications involving the blowing up of roads and bridges. A small number of houses are known to have been targeted, but in the face of stringent opposition by locals, plans to burn these houses were scrapped. The most celebrated case was a plan by the IRA flying squad to burn Borris House. Once news of the planned attack became known in the village, senior IRA officers were told that such an action against the Kavanaghs would be unacceptable among villagers.”
p. 90. St. Austin’s Abbey was occupied by Free State soldiers in 1922, and they left after a plea from a Bishop, who feared bloodshed in the event of an engagement with the IRA. After the soldiers left the IRA burned St. Austin’s. The Doynes were by no means popular landlords but the burning of two of their houses was purely co-incidental and never regarded as acts of reprisal.
Towards the end of 18C, as the full force of the Penal Laws began to ease, relations between Catholics and Protestants remained bitter. The Doynes, along with their neighbours the Wolseleys, successfully frustrated efforts to site a Catholic seminary in the town, forcing the Bishop to find a site in Carlow.
In the aftermath of the 1798 Rebellion, the widows of 28 men who lost their lives during the battle of Carlow were evicted from part of Doyne’s land.
Charles Doyne, nicknamed “Silky Charlie,” who lived in Dublin, was agent for the Kavanaghs of Borris and the Beresford estate in Fenagh. His tough stand against tenants who refused to support their landlords during the elections between 1831-1841, in contest with Daniel O’Connell’s repeal candidates and the Liberals, did nothing to redress the tarnished image of the Doynes as landlords.
p. 91. The Doynes, originally O’Duinn, were an ancient Irish sept, whose chieftains ruled County Laois…
p. 93. Robert Doyne (1651-1733) became Lord Chief Justice of Common Pleas in Ireland and later Lord Chief Baron. His eldest son, Philip Doyne (1685-1754) married Mary Burton, daughter of Benjamin Burton, the Dublin banker, and he established the family seat at Wells, Co Wexford, where they had 7000 acres. His grandson, Benjamin Burton Doyne, who lived at Altamont House, was High Sheriff of Co Carlow in 1775, and he died in 1787. It was during the reign of Queen Anne (1703-1713) that the Doynes were granted estates of 3,200 acres in County Carlow, and St. Austin’s was built in the 1850s by Charles Henry Doyne (1806-1867), youngest son of Robert Doyne (1782-1850) of Wells. The architects were Sir Thomas Newenham Deane, and Benjamin Woodward. … Charles Henry, who died 1867, had no male heir and his two daughters, Mary and Annette, died unmarried. His nephew, James Walter Doyne, who inherited St. Austin’s, was High Sheriff for County Carlow in 1881, and he died unmarried in 1898, aged 47.”
St. Austin’s was inherited by James Walter’s nephew, Dermot Henry Doyne, who married Alice Gertrude Brook of Ardeen, Shillelagh, in 1905. They had one son, Charles Hastings Doyne, born 1906. They had left Tullow a few years before the outbreak of the War of Independence. Dermot Doyne, DL, JP and High Sherif for Carlow in 1902, died 1942. His widow lived subsequently at Germaines, Rathvilly and Charles Hastings Doyne inherited Wells. St. Austin’s was purchased from the Doyne estate by James Neale and after his death, hisnephew Evan Hadden of Tinahely, sold St. Austin’s and the adjoining farm to local businessman Joe O’Neill in 1977. The gat lodge is thehome of his son Joseph O’Neill.
Kellistown, a former glebe house, was purchased in 1880 by Charles Mervyn Doyne of Wells, from the Representative Church Body for £1899. He subsequently purchased an adjoining 20acres of church land. When his son, Dermot Henry Doyne, sold the house and land to James Hughes in 1927 – the house was in ruins -the price was £1,500.”
http://www.igp-web.com/Carlow/St_Austins_Abbey.htm
St. Austin’s Abbey (now in ruin) was built in the 1850’s by Charles Henry Doyne youngest son of Robert Doyne. The architects were Sir Thomas Newenham Deane and Benjamin Woodward.” When Charles Henry died in 1867 with no male heirs St. Austin’s Abbey passed to his nephew James W.C. Doyne.
Jimmy O’Toole in his excellent book “The Carlow Gentry” tells us more of the Doyne family history. “It was during the reign of Queen Anne (1703 – 1713) that the Doynes were granted estates of 3,200 acres in County Carlow including St. Austin’s Abbey.
https://tullowhistorian.wordpress.com/2018/03/01/st-austins-abbey/
St. Austin’s Abbey House
The Doyne family, originally O’Duinn, an ancient Irish family from Laois, were granted 3,200 acres in Co. Carlow during the reign of Queen Anne (1703- 1713). In the 1850s Charles Henry Doyne (1806 – 1867) built St. Austin’s Abbey House.[13] Dermot and Alice Doyne left St. Austin’s before the outbreak of the War of Independence. St. Austin’s was burned own during the Civil War in 1922.[14]
St Austin’s Abbey House, Tullow, burned by anti-treaty forces 1922 (Courtesy: Jimmy O’Toole)The Abbey farm and gate house are now owned by the O’Neill family
Irish Historic Houses 