Durrow Abbey, Tullamore, Offaly – dilapidated
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. 117. “(Graham-Toler, Norbury, E/PB; Slazenger, sub Powerscourt, V/PB) Originally a plain three storey 7 bay C18 house with a pillared porch; replaced ca 1837 by a Tudor-Gothic house built for 2nd Earl of Norbury, who was murdered here 1839. The house now consists of two two storey ranges at right angles to each other, one of them standing on slightly lower ground, with a small battlemented tower at their junction. The higher range has a central projecting porch-gable, with a corbelled oriel over the entrance door, and a slightly stepped gable at each end. There are tall Tudor-style chimneys and a few pinnacles. The house was rebuilt in the same style 1924. Nearby is the site of an ancient abbey, with a fine C10 High Cross. Durrow passed to the descendants of a younger son of 2nd Earl; it was sold ca 1950 and was afterwards the home of Mr and Mrs Ralph Slazenger; it is now the home of Mr and Mrs Michael Williams.”
https://archiseek.com/2015/1860-durrow-abbey-durrow-co-offaly
1860 – Durrow Abbey, Durrow, Co. Offaly
The story of Durrow Abbey House is framed by two fires. One in 1843 when the house was under construction destroyed the adjacent Georgian mansion and all the furnishings stored there, the other in 1923 meant the total destruction of itself.
Construction was underway in 1837 when Lewis remarked “The principal seats are Durrow Abbey, that of the Earl of Norbury, situated in an ample and highly improved demesne, in which his lordship is erecting a spacious mansion in the ancient style”. After the murder of Lord Norbury in 1839, work had largely ceased on construction prior to the fire of 1843. A contemporary newspaper article described it: “This magnificent abbey is nearly destroyed. On Saturday evening last, it took fire, and before assistance could be procured to arrest the progress of the flames the abbey was almost reduced to ruin. This noble structure remained in an unfinished state as the entire works were stopped immediately after the murder of the late munificent proprietor, Lord Norbury. The new building which was not completed, joined the old one, which it was intended to adopt as a wing by facing it with stone; in this portion all the valuable furniture was stored and this part of the extensive building is totally destroyed.” After the fire, construction continued and the building was completed around 1860.
The house consisted of three storeys over a sunken basement, with an off-center three-storey entrance porch – a later porte cochere was added. Richly ornamented with gable end bay windows, tall chimney stacks and corner turrets, all of limestone. To the rear was a simple castellated service wing facing a sunken courtyard, two sides of which were bounded by a single storey range of stores.
In 1923, during the Irish Civil War, the house was gutted by fire, the roof collapsing, and the entire fixtures and fittings destroyed. It was rebuilt in the mid 1920s to designs by Ralph H. Byrne.
https://archiseek.com/2015/1926-durrow-abbey-durrow-co-offaly
1926 – Durrow Abbey, Durrow, Co. Offaly
Architect: Ralph H. Byrne
After the second Durrow Abbey House was gutted by fire during the Civil War in 1923. Ralph H. Byrne was commissioned to oversee reconstruction of Durrow Abbey House for Ottoway Graham Toler in 1926. As all that remained of the old house was the exterior walls, a complete redesign was in order. Byrne produced several designs, one with a strong Arts and Crafts style, and the other Tudor Gothic in keeping with the old house. The new house was to be a storey lower, while largely utilising the floor plan of the previous house. Interior designs show an elaborate Arts and Crafts interior, but this was scaled back to more basic interior finish. The house currently sits empty.
Photographs courtesy and copyright of Paul Moore
On An Taisce Buildings at Risk register
https://www.antaisce.org/buildingsatrisk/durrow-abbey-house-tullamore
- Suffering from structural problems
- Abandoned ruin
Assessment
- Condition of Structure: Poor
- Level of Risk: High
Appraisal
This building has been vacant for a number of years and does not appear to be maintained. Most of the external fabric remains, but there are obvious signs of deterioration, particularly water penetration, slipped slates, vegetation growth, broken windows and vandalism. There is no immediate danger of collapse but the condition is such that unless urgent remedial works are carried out the building will sharply deteriorate.
The structure is of significant historic importance and requires conservation works to prevent further deterioration. This building urgently requires new uses to be identified to prevent further deterioration of its character.
Photograph Credit: N/A Local Association: Offaly
Detached L-plan multiple-bay two-storey over basement Jacobean Revival style house, built between 1837-43, with breakfront tower and gable to north elevation and canted bays to eastern projecting bay and southern bay, courtyard buildings to rear. Built on the site of the eighteenth-century house and set within grounds of Durrow Abbey demesne. Pitched slate roof with ashlar limestone chimneystacks, terracotta ridge tiles and some cast-iron rainwater goods. Ashlar limestone walls with string coursing and pinnacles to angles. Variety of square-headed fenestration with some hoodmouldings and limestone transoms and mullions. Pointed-arched door opening to eastern elevation with tooled limestone surround and timber door, square-headed door opening to rear with overlight chamfered surround and hoodmoulding. Courtyard to rear with single-storey buildings, open arcading and crenellations accessed through pointed-arched door opening to west. External access to eastern façade by limestone balustraded steps and piers supporting carved stone urns. Ashlar gate piers to west. Ranges of outbuildings, gates and gate lodge associated with house.
Built on the former site of Durrow Abbey, this grand house dominates the grounds of the demesne which it overlooks. Superbly executed cut stonework construction to the elevations, crenellations, canted bays, pointed arches, blind niches and chimneystacks is evident. Apparently largely rebuilt in the 1920s following a fire, the interior was designed by Ralph Byrne in the Queen Anne Art Nouveau style. Blind cross niches hint to the site’s history and urns to the steps are similar to those found in the eighteenth-century church doorway, suggesting these steps originate from the earlier site. When considered in conjunction with the demesne’s full history and related sites, the sixth-century abbey that became the birth place of the early Medieval script, the Book of Durrow, Durrow high cross, the site of the medieval motte and Saint Columbkille’s church and well, Durrow Abbey House is archaeologically and architecturally significant on a national scale.
Ranges of multiple-bay single- and two-storey outbuildings, built in 1833, and arranged around two courtyards with modern concrete additions. Set within grounds of Durrow Demesne. Now mostly disused. Hipped slate roofs with terracotta ridge tiles, ashlar chimneystacks and cast-iron rainwater goods. Tooled ashlar limestone walls. Timber sash windows to upper storey with tooled limestone sills. Segmental-headed door openings. Circular opening with date plaque to south-west elevation. Squared limestone turbine house to centre of north-west courtyard. Yellow brick workers’ accommodation to north-west of site. Walled garden and moat to rear of site, also associated with Durrow Demesne.
Appraisal
The high quality stone masonry, as the dominating feature of Durrow Demesne, is no less evident in its pair of courtyards. They may have been executed to a design by William Murray. Each piece of limestone has been skillfully cut and tooled to fit flawlessly into the design. Segmental-headed arches elegantly line the yards many stable fittings and some machinery survives. This sprawling group of outbuildings and associated workers’ housing stands as a further testament to the former vitality of this estate.
Detached T-plan three-bay single-storey gate lodge, built c.1840 with return to rear. Not in use. Set within grounds of Durrow Demesne. Pitched slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles, ashlar chimneystacks, coping and cast-iron rainwater goods. Triple-light timber windows with limestone hoodmoulding. Square-headed door opening in north projection with timber panelled door and limestone hoodmoulding. Plaque with crown and fleur-de-lis on north projection gable wall and hoodmoulding. Yellow brick pitched roofed return to rear. Palladian style wrought-iron gateway to east, set on ashlar limestone plinth with carriage arch and pedestrian gates to centre.
Appraisal
Finely executed stone masonry and metal working are displayed at this site, testament to the skilled craftsmanship available at the time. This high quality construction of the lodge and gates indicate the importance of the house to which they belong; an outward display of sophistication and wealth to all who call to Durrow Abbey House.
Durrow Abbey House, a Tudor/Gothic building near Tullamore in county Offaly,was begun in 1837 (to replace an earlier 18th century plain house) by Hector Toler, (later Hector John Graham -Toler ), the 2nd Earl of Norbury. Unfortunately he never saw it finished as he was murdered in 1839. Originally (?at least after Church ownership) the lands had being acquired by the Herbert family (mid 16th century I believe), and were inherited by the Stepneys, who eventually sold it to John Toler. This John Toler had his origins in Co.Tipperary and eventually received a title and became a judge, although by all accounts he was exceedingly poor at his job and quite harsh.
Add a fire in 1843 and the completion of the “ new” house wasn’t until the 1850s.
In 1876 The Hon Otway Toler was in possession of the house, and about 4500 acres, although he gave his main address as Albermarle St ,Mayfair, in London (indeed his residence is recorded as Windsor House, Ryde in a separate document I’ve read).He also retained 8,789 acres in Co. Tipperary (although the estate in Tipperary had been larger in the past), it seems there was also just over 3,000 acres in Laois and 140 odd in Westmeath.
In the 1911 census, another Otway Toler was in residence with 9 servants,there were 36 rooms used in the house.
1922 saw a malicious fire which necessitated the rebuilding of the house in the mid 1920s.
It went from 3 storey over basement to 2 storey over basement , but retained its footprint and architectural style. It had of course originally somewhat mimicked Castle Bernard (Kinnitty Castle) in the same county.
Within the estate lies the ancient abbey of Durrow with its 10th century high cross (now in situ within the abbey). The Toler family remained at Durrow until 1949 and in 1950 the
house was purchased by the Slazenger (now of Powerscourt house) .The Williams family of Tullamore Dew fame bought it from them and eventually sold it to the O Brien family who I believe may have had commercial intentions for the estate, which obviously didn’t happen.
It’s now in public/opw ownership, they ( the government) paid over €3m in 2003 for the house and abbey.
It appears the property was then leased at a nominal rent to the Arts for Peace Foundation for 99 years,however there seems to have been a dispute between them and the OPW over I believe maintenance issues which has meant the building has been in essence disused for several years now.
Unfortunately the stables/outhouse and gardens are a sad sight in their state of dereliction. The house, although it appears structurally sound, is now too starting to reflect its lack of recent habitation or use and is perhaps in need of at least some tender loving care. In fairness to the OPW, charged with looking after monuments, parks, houses, castles etc, they do an admirable job, the 1930 National Monuments Act has moved on, as have their minuscule budgets of the past.Harold Leask had a seemingly impossible task in his day,but they’ve come a long way thankfully, and hopefully a happy ending may be on the horizon for Durrow Abbey House, it would be a shame to see it wasted.
(Incidentally I’ve since written a small feature about the abbey on my other Facebook page called Old Irish Buildings and Places which may be of interest to some readers, in March 2019).
https://theirishaesthete.com/2018/04/23/in-limbo-2/
In Limbo
The house at Durrow Abbey, County Offaly has a long and frequently unhappy history. Asits name implies, this was originally a religious settlement (for more on which, see On the Plain of Oaks, February 2nd 2015). However in the 16th century and following the dissolution of the monasteries, the lands on which it stood were leased to Nicholas Herbert at a rent of £10 per annum payable to the Crown and military service when required. Herbert was granted a second lease in 1574 on condition that he built two stone fortresses on the site within four years. The Herberts remained in residence here until the death without male heirs of Sir George Herbert, third baronet, in 1712. The estate was then inherited by Sir George’s sister Frances, married to a Major Patrick Fox: it was Mrs Fox who rebuilt the old adjacent church that remains today. The Foxes having no direct heirs, Durrow was then inherited by Philip Rawson Stepney and eventually by Herbert Rawson Stepney who, three years before his death in 1818 sold the estate to John Toler, first Lord Norbury. It would appear that during the time of the Stepneys that a new residence was built at Durrow: a surviving drawing made by architect William Murray in September 1829 shows the building – then called Durrow Park – to have been a plain classical structure of three storeys and seven bays, centred on a groundfloor doorcase with portico. Already at that date plans were being made for something more distinctive to be constructed on the site, but ultimately it was Norbury’s son who embarked on this enterprise.
Politician and lawyer, John Toler enjoyed a highly successful career at the bar despite being almost universally reviled for his ability to combine corruption with incompetence. He served as Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas for twenty-seven years (1800-1827) during which time he became known as the ‘Hanging Judge’ such was his propensity to prescribe the death sentence and only resigned at the age of 82 when offered an earldom and an annual pension of more than £3,000. Dying in 1831 he was succeeded by his son Hector John Graham-Toler, second Earl of Norbury who some years later decided to embark of a comprehensive redevelopment of the house: Samuel Lewis’ Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (1837) mentions that ‘his lordship is erecting a spacious mansion in the ancient style.’ Two years later, in January 1839, Lord Norbury was shot dead by an unknown assailant while out riding: no one was ever brought to court (despite a reward being offered of £5,000 and 100 acres) but it seems likely the person responsible was a tenant recently evicted from a holding on the estate.
The widowed Lady Norbury pressed on with her late husband’s plans to rebuild Durrow and work continued there until 1843 when a fire broke out. A contemporary account in The Nation recorded that ‘The new building which was not completed, joined the old one, which it was intended to adopt as a wing by facing it with stone; in this portion all the valuable furniture was stored and this part of the extensive building is totally destroyed.’ At some later date the new building was completed, and thereafter owned by successive generations of the Graham-Toler family until the 1940s.
Completed around 1860, Durrow Abbey House’s architect is unknown. Designed in the popular Jacobean Revival style, the building was originally of three storeys over a sunken basement with high gable-end windows, raised chimney stacks and corner turrets, the whole in cut limestone. Behind the main block runs a long service wing opening onto a sunken courtyard. At one stage, a large porte-cochere stood in front of the main entrance. This survived until April 1923 when the house was burnt during the Civil War. It was subsequently rebuilt three years later with the top storey and porte-cochere removed, and with simplified Arts and Crafts interiors designed by Dublin architect Ralph Henry Byrne. Following the sale of the property by the Graham-Tolers, Durrow was owned first by the Slazenger family (who later became owners of Powerscourt, County Wicklow) and then the Williams family (who owned the local whiskey distillery). Subsequent owners proposed to change use of the property from private residence to hotel and golf resort as part of a €170 million scheme that would also have included several hundred houses and apartments. This plan was comprehensively rejected by the planning authorities, not least because of the importance of the immediately adjacent medieval site. Durrow languished in uncertainty until 2003 when the Irish State paid in the region of €3.5 million to acquire the place and surrounding 80-odd acres.
In May 2007 a 99-year lease on the main house was agreed by Dick Roche, then-Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and a charitable organisation called Arts for Peace Foundation. Incorporated in August 2004, Arts for Peace ‘provides therapeutic peace education programmes for children affected by conflict.’ Paying an annual peppercorn rent of €10, the organisation used the house as a respite centre for groups of young people from diverse places around the world. Meanwhile the Office of Public Works carried out necessary work on the old church and moved a mid-ninth century High Cross moved indoors. All seemed well for the future of the entire site until five years ago when Arts for Peace stopped using the main house for its projects. In December 2016 The Times reported that a month before the charity and its founder Elizabeth Garrahy had filed a High Court action against the Office of Public Works and the Irish State seeking damages for alleged breach of contract. The charity alleged the OPW had committed to providing €500,000 and then €250,000 for repair work, but then failed to provide the funding. The OPW in turn accused the charity of failing to carry out necessary repairs and maintenance of the property according to the terms of its lease. It transpires this is why the building has not been occupied or used since 2013: for the past five years the OPQ and Arts for Peace have been at war. Although this matter ought to be of widespread interest (not least because of the potential financial implications for the Irish taxpayer), it seems the only public representative to express concern has been Carlow-Kilkenny TD John McGuinness. He has regularly raised the question of Durrow Abbey in Dáil Éireann, and elsewhere. The last time Deputy McGuinness did so was two months ago on February 15th at a meeting of the Select Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform (of which Mr McGuinness is chair) attended by Kevin Moran, current Minister of State for the Office of Public Works and Flood Relief. In the course of a discussion on the unresolved problems at Durrow Abbey, Mr McGuinness stated, ‘I firmly believe that with an effort, with both sides sitting down without being tied by legal process and without prejudice, they could reach a resolution, rather than spend unnecessary funds and scarce resources on a case when in my opinion the Arts for Peace Foundation has a good case. Going to court is a step beyond common sense in my opinion in this instance.’
The state, which is to say the Irish citizenry, has spent a considerable amount of money acquiring and restoring portions of the historic Durrow Abbey site and, as was announced at the end of last year, the state intends to spend more in the near future making the property more accessible to visitors. However at the same time a substantial group of buildings sits empty and neglected: tellingly, in May/June 2016, despite the ongoing dispute, the OPW undertook emergency remedial works to prevent water ingress to the house). This argument is surely capable of resolution, but the longer it takes to find agreement, the greater the cost. A speedy settlement is obviously advantageous. Until this happens the house at the centre of the estate and of the legal wrangle remains in a state of limbo. This is a situation that benefits no one.
Durrow Abbey House, Tullamore A better future on the horizon for the monastic site, house and lands?
JANUARY 6, 2018 ~ MICHAEL BYRNE
It would be nice to write that Durrow Abbey house, Tullamore is in course of restoration and that it, the High Cross and Church and the parklands adjoining will soon be properly open to the public. It’s possible but getting more difficult as the house continues to deteriorate. It has been vacant for a considerable time. Councillor Tommy McKeigue drew attention to it recently at Offaly County Council and Paul Moore has reminded us of it in his photographs that are too kind to its present sad condition. But there are hopeful signs. The footpath from Durrow Woods should be completed this year and will allow walkers to come close to the house and the old church at Durrow and High Cross. At least more people will see it and become aware of its potential to midlands/ Ireland East, or is it Lakelands Tourism.
There is growing pressure on the monastic site at Clonmacnoise of which the OPW is painfully aware. It has been suggested that Durrow should be ‘developed’ as a new monastic visitor facility to ease that pressure, much as happened at Newgrange. The management and councillors want it and Offaly tourism needs it. Recent figures indicate how poorly the Midlands performs relative to Dublin and the Atlantic Way.
The house needs attention.
What can be done?
The state needs to come to a satisfactory settlement with the current tenant but has not been in a hurry. It was the same with the right of way to the old church and graveyard – a saga that went on from its first being raised in 1974 to 2003 when these concerns were finally resolved by purchase. It needs one great push from our TDs and councillors to get the financial support that is needed to develop Durrow as a first class visitor attraction.
What’s special about the house? Has it a history?
The lands of Durrow formerly belonged to the monastery. After the Reformation the monastic lands were immediately regranted to the Prior of the now dissolved monastery, Contan O’Molloy, on a 21 year lease in the 1540s. According to the Obits of Kilcormac Contan O’Molloy, prior of Durrow, was slain in 1553. About 1561 the Durrow lands were leased for 21 years at a rent of £10 a year to Nicholas Herbert, a member of an old English family. Herbert received a full grant of the property in 1574.
Nicholas Herbert was succeeded by Richard and in turn by George, the third baronet. The latter died without issue in 1712. His sister Frances Herbert married Major Patrick Fox of Foxhall, County Longford but there were no children of the marriage and as a result Philip Rawson Stepney succeeded to the estates. It was Mrs Fox who rebuilt the abbey church in about 1730.
The Durrow estate eventually passed to Herbert Rawson Stepney who was obliged to sell it to John Toler in 1815. His death is marked on a memorial tablet in the old church.
The Hanging Judge whose ‘scanty knowledge of law, his gross partiality, his callousness and his buffoonery, completely disqualified him from the position’.
John Toler was born at Beechwood, Co. Tipperary in 1745. and graduated BA in 1761, was called to the Irish Bar in 1770 and was elected MP for Tralee in 1776. He sat for the borough of Philipstown (Daingean) in 1783. For his constant support of the government he was well rewarded. For his support of the Union (1800) he was advanced to be Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and elevated to the peerage as Baron Norbury. He held his bench appointment for nearly twenty seven years, although his scanty knowledge of law, his gross partiality, his callousness and his buffoonery, completely disqualified him from the position. His presence on the bench was however, ultimately felt by all parties to be a scandal and an obstacle to the establishment of a better understanding with the Catholics. In 1825 O’Connell drew up a petition to parliament calling for his removal on the grounds that he had fallen asleep during a trial for murder and was unable to give any account of the evidence when called on for his notes by the lord-lieutenant. The petition was presented, but no motion was based upon it, as Peel gave an assurance that the matter would be inquired into. But it was not till the accession of Canning as Prime Minister in 1827, when Norbury was in his eighty-second year that he was induced to resign, or as O’Connell put it ‘bought off the bench by a most shameful traffic’ by his advancement in the peerage as Viscount Glandine and Earl of Norbury, with special remainder to his second son, together with a retiring pension of £3,046 (equivalent to €400,000 today). He died at Dublin on 27 July 1831, aged 85 (and is recalled in Norbury Woods, Tullamore). Toler married Grace, daughter of Hector Graham in 1778 and by her had two sons and two daughters. He was succeeded in his estates by his second son Hector as his eldest son was said to be of unsound mind.
Murder of Lord Norbury at Durrow
Hector Toler, the second Lord Norbury, was a man of quiet disposition, very little interested in politics and seemingly content to manage and develop his estates. According to a return of 1839 supplied by George Garvey, Lord Norbury’s agent, Norbury was possessed of 26,720 acres in six counties with 654 tenants. His largest estate was in Tipperary where he had 16,464 acres and his King’s County estate came next at 3,598 acres. The latter estate had 156 tenants. The murder of Hector Toler has to this day remained a mystery but it is thought that it had its origins in a dispute between the landlord and one or more of his tenants.
Norbury Eulogy by Lord Oxmantown of Birr
From the statement by Lord Oxmantown of Birr (later the third Earl of Rosse) on the one side and the parish priest of Tullamore, Fr. O’Rafferty, on the other we can take it that relations between landlord and tenant were generally good. Lord Oxmantown stated that:
When the late lamented nobleman became a permanent resident at Durrow Abbey, the tenantry on the estate were in the most wretched condition. It had been purchased by his father from a gentleman who had been in great difficulties and the tenantry, as usual exhibited the shocking evidences of the poverty of their former landlord. Lord Norbury, by a large expenditure, and repeated acts of profuse generosity raised their condition to a state of comfortable independence. He was in the act of building a splendid residence, to be permanent residence of his family, and consequently the centre of a great expenditure, he employed a large proportion of the surrounding peasantry, conferring upon them all the advantages which accrue from the residence of an extensive landed proprietor. Go where you may, you can hear but one opinion of him – all classes unite in conferring upon him this just tribute of praise – that a better landlord, a more charitable man, and a more excellent country gentleman could not have existed.
Lewis in his Topographical Dictionary of 1837 mentions that a new mansion house was being built at Durrow Abbey house in similar in style to Pain’s Castle Bernard (Kinnitty Castle) in the mid-1830s. No architectural plans are known to have survived. The present Durrow Abbey was built close to the site of the earlier house because in 1843 it was reported that:
The old house formerly the residence of Colonel Stepney was nearly all consumed to the vaults, nothing remains but the walls, Revd. Mr. O’Rafferty got a sod wall built between the old building and the new that was erected by the late Earl of Norbury and saved the latter from being consumed.
Durrow Abbey shared the same fate as many as 12 other country houses in Offaly in the early 1920s when it was destroyed by a band of armed men in May 1923 – as the Civil War was fizzling out. It was rebuilt about 1926.
The Toler family continued to reside at Durrow until the late 1940s. The house and contents were sold in 1950. Noel Terence Graham-Toler, the sixth earl of Norbury, succeeded on the death of his father in 1955 and lived in England. Durrow Abbey, during the 1950s and up to the mid-1960s was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Slazenger (later of Powerscourt). It was subsequently purchased by Mr and Mrs. M. M. Williams, of the local Tullamore distilling family. They in turn sold it to Mr and Mrs. Patrick O’Brien of Navan, Co. Meath who planned to build a hotel, golf course and generally have a small sporting estate. Nothing came of this and in 2003 the Office of Public Works purchased the house and about 70 acres inclusive of the old Abbey church, High Cross and graveyard.
he house was in constant occupation until 14 years ago and was rebuilt to a high standard in 1926. The Slazenger family kept it in excellent repair as is clear from the outbuildings. Uses come under Community or Private. Any such would have to get substantial support from the OPW for the restoration and work in with a plan for the monastic site and the OPW lands. More lands might be acquired in time for nature trails, forest walks and organic farming.
The example is there in the work done on the church and High Cross. The cross needed to brought indoors just as Clonmacnoise needs to be less busy today. High Cross on right courtesy of friend Paul Moore who has done so much to highlight the house.
The potential is there. These pictures of the interior in the early 1990s
https://digital.ucd.ie/view/ucdlib:46895
Durrow Abbey before restoration. Durrow Abbey was originally constructed in approximately the 1830s. Restoration of the building after a fire was undertaken by G. & T. Crampton in 1926. The architect for these works was Ralph Henry Byrne.
Irish Historic Houses 
