Rockshire House, Co Kilkenny 

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. 244. “(Newport/Bt,PB1862) A fine two storey house overlooking the city of Waterford from the Kilkenny side of the River Suir, built 1780s by a member of the rich and powerful C18 Waterford banking family of Newport. Long façade with two three sided bows. Pillared hall, magnificent drawing room or ballroom, higher than the other principal rooms; with a ceiling of fine late C18 plasterwork with good doorcases. The house was saved from destruction by Mr Donal O’Neill Flanagan, the architect, who bought it and restored it sympathetically as the offices of his firm.” 

https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/12404605/rockshire-house-rockshire-waterford-environs-of-co-kilkenny

Rockshire House, ROCKSHIRE, Waterford (environs of), County Kilkenny 

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Detached seven-bay two-storey over basement Classical-style house, c.1775, on a symmetrical plan comprising three-bay two-storey central block with pair of two-storey canted bay windows to outer bays, and two-bay two-storey flanking ranges having two-bay two-storey side elevations on shallow bowed plans. Restored, pre-1988. Converted to use as apartments, 2001. Hipped slate roof (continuing into half-octagonal sections to canted bay windows) with clay ridge tiles, rendered chimney stacks, slightly sproketed eaves, and cast-iron rainwater goods on rendered eaves. Painted rendered, ruled and lined walls. Square-headed window openings with painted cut-stone sills, nine-over-six or nine-over-nine (ground floor) and six-over-six (first floor) timber sash windows. Round-headed door opening approached by flight of four cut-stone steps having wrought iron railings, painted rendered pilaster doorcase incorporating entablature, and timber panelled double doors having fanlight. Set back from road in own grounds with wrought iron railings to basement on cut-stone plinth, and landscaped grounds to site including forecourt. 

Appraisal 

An elegantly-appointed middle-size house built by the Newport family forming an important element of the mid to late eighteenth-century domestic architectural heritage of the environs of Waterford City. Distinctive attributes including the bay windows, the Classically-detailed doorcase, and so on all contribute to the architectural design aesthetic of the composition. Having been thoroughly restored under the direction of Donal O’Neill-Flanagan (n. d.) the house remains of additional importance for the historic connections with the Greene family. 

https://www.myhome.ie/residential/brochure/2-rockshire-house-rockshire-road-ferrybank-waterford/3945761