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Fee: adult house €14.50, tour of house €18.50, child €7, tour of house €10, OAP/student €12, tour of house €14.50, family €31, tour of house €39
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The Archiseek website describes Strokestown Park house as “a substantial house in the Palladian manner of a central block flanked by wings and curved sweeps. The centre block was completed in 1696 but extended around 1730 by Richard Cassels who added the substantial wings. The house was further altered in 1819 by J. Lynn.” [2]
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon.
We visited Strokestown Park in County Roscommon during Heritage Week 2022. It houses the excellent National Famine Museum and Archive, which is really worth visiting. It sounds grim, but it is a great exhibition and it tells us so much about people’s lives that it is not a grim museum at all. It also tells us about the Pakenham-Mahons, the family who lived in the impressive Strokestown Park. Strokestown Park was the home of the first landlord to be assassinated during the height of the Great Famine of Ireland the 1840s, and it is therefore ideal for the location of the Famine Museum.
In 1979 Nicholas Hales Pakenham Mahon sold the estate to Westward Garage, founded by Jim Callery. The new owners allowed the last of the Mahon family, Olive and her husband Wilfrid Stuart Hales Pakenham Mahon, to remain living in the house until she moved to a nursing home.
Despite no longer being in the hands of the original owners, the house contains the original furnishings and fittings. The house is unchanged from the time when the Mahons lived there.
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
The Museum was created when Jim Callery, founder of the Westward Garage which purchased the property, found documents relating to the famine in the family archives. Jim Callery and the Westward Garage carried out a major restoration programme and opened the property to the public. Since 2015, Strokestown Park is cared for by the Irish Heritage Trust, an independent charity. Produce from the original working gardens are grown by volunteers and used in the Strokestown Park Café.
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
The website tells us that the house is built on the site of the 16th-century castle, home of the O Conor-Roe Gaelic Chieftains. Before being called “Strokestown House” the property was called “Bawn,” in reference to the bawn of the O Conor-Roe castle.
Nicholas Mahon, a captain in King Charles I’s army, was granted Strokestown as a royal deer park in 1653. Later, after pledging allegiance to King Charles II, he received more land. He was High Sheriff of County Roscommon, 1664-76. [3] He received over 3000 acres in 1678. He started to build a house, which was completed after his death in 1680, in 1696. Terence Reeves-Smyth tells us in his book Irish Big Houses that there is a stone by the door which has 1696 carved into it – the stone is now inside the house.
Strokestown Park featured as Building of the Month in December 2015 on the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, and it tells us about the 1696 house:
“Evidence of this house survives to the present day at basement level where a panelled still room, previously one of the principal reception rooms, retains a rosette-detailed Jacobean chimneypiece, an egg-and-dart-detailed plasterwork overmantle decorated with fruits and shells, and a compartmentalised ceiling with dentilated moulded plasterwork cornices. Some earlier remains of the castle are also found in the basement where sections of the walls measure almost three metres deep. Memories of the medieval past were carried through into the nineteenth century when the house was still officially called, and was referred to by Isaac Weld (1832) and Samuel Lewis (1837) as “Bawn”.” [4] [5]
Stephen and I were able to see part of the interior of the house, despite the house being closed for restoration work at the time, by joining a Heritage Week talk about a photographic dark room which had been created in the house by one of its residents. Unfortunately we did not get to see the basement or the galleried kitchen.
Captain Nicholas married Magdalena French, daughter of Arthur French of Movilla Castle, County Galway. [6] They had several children. Their son Reverend Peter (d. 1739) became Dean of Elphin and married Catherine, daughter of Paul Gore of Castle Gore, County Mayo (otherwise known as Deel Castle, now a ruin), who was son of Arthur, 1st Baronet Gore, of Newtown Gore, otherwise known as Parkes Castle in Leitrim (see my Office of Public Works in Connaught, Counties Leitrim, Mayo and Roscommon entry).
Another son, Nicholas (c. 1671-1781) married Eleanor Blayney, daughter of Henry Vincent, 5th Baron Blayney of Castle Blayney, County Monaghan.
A daughter, Margaret, married Edward Cooper of Markree Castle, County Sligo (another Section 482 property which we visited).
Strokestown passed via another son, John (d. 1708), who married Eleanor Butler (daughter of Thomas, 3rd Baronet Butler, of Cloughgrenan, Co. Carlow), to their son Thomas (1701-1782). It was Thomas who built on to the 1696 house, to create a residence designed by Richard Cassells, in about 1730.
Terence Reeves-Smyth tells us in his Irish Big Houses that the top storey and balustrade were added probably around 1740 when Richard Castle built the wings for Thomas Mahon. [7]
Richard Castle, or Cassells, (c.1690/95–1751) probably came to Ireland to work for Sir Gustavus Hume to design Castle Hume, Co. Fermanagh. [8] He then worked under Edward Lovett Pearce when Pearce worked on the Parliament Building in Dublin. Pearce died young and Castle succeeded to his practice. The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us:
“He contributed significantly to the development of Dublin, designing the first imposing town houses in cut stone for the nobility, notably Tyrone House, Marlborough St. (1740–45), built for Marcus Beresford (1694–1793), later earl of Tyrone, and Leinster House, Kildare St. (1745–51), for James Fitzgerald, earl of Kildare, the grandest town house and since the 1920s the seat of Dáil Éireann. His commissions included 85 Stephen’s Green (c.1738), the first stone-fronted house on the Green, latterly part of Newman House; houses in Kildare St., notably Doneraile House (designed c.1743); and Sackville Place...Castle designed many country houses, including Belvedere, Co. Westmeath (designed 1740), which incorporated the ‘Venetian’ window, a common feature of his designs, and Ballyhaise, Co. Cavan (c.1733). By altering and enlarging many houses, he created grand country mansions (often with vaulted stables), notably Powerscourt, Co. Wicklow, with its magnificent Egyptian hall (built 1731×1740; damaged by fire 1974, and since partly restored), Westport House, Co. Mayo (1731–40), and Carton House, Co. Kildare (c.1739–45). Conolly’s Folly at Castletown estate, Co. Kildare (1740), a tall obelisk mounted on multiple arches, is attributed to him. He possibly collaborated with Francis Bindon on Belan House, Co. Kildare, complete with temple and three obelisks (1743), and Russborough, Co. Wicklow (c.1742–55).” [9]
The house has a seven-bay, three-storey over basement central block, with curved curtain walls linking it to flanking pavilions with four-bay principal façades. The centre block front facade has three bays in the centre with giant pilasters either side and two bays beyond on either side. The centre three bays have a central panel on the pediment and the two bays on either side of the pilasters have a balustraded pediment. The front door is set in a tooled stone doorcase with decorative brackets, with an ornate spoked fanlight, and is flanked by traceried sidelights.
The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage tells us that the pedimented archways to outer walls extending from pavilions give access to stable complex and kitchen yards. [10]
The flanking curtain walls have niches flanked by oculus windows on the upper part with tooled stone surrounds, and a Gibbsean doorcase with pediment over.
In 1735, Thomas married Jane Crosbie, daughter of Maurice, 1st Baron Branden, of Ardfert, County Kerry, MP for County Kerry. Thomas Mahon later became MP, first for the Borough of Roscommon in 1739-1763 then for County Roscommon 1763-82, when he was called the “Father of the House.” [11]
Thomas’s son Maurice (1738-1819), named after Jane’s father, married Catherine, daughter of Stephen Moore, 1st Viscount Mountcashell, in 1765. He inherited when his father died in 1782. He was granted a peerage for his support of the Act of Union, and created 1st Baron Hartland, of Strokestown, Co. Roscommon in 1800.
Terence Reeves-Smyth tells us:
“His son Maurice, who became Baron Hartland upon accepting a Union Peerage in 1800, made further additions and modifications to the house, including the inlaid mahogany doors, chimney-pieces and cornices as well as the library.”
Strokestown, image by Chris Hill, 2014, Tourism Ireland, from Ireland’s Content Pool. [1] Mark Bence-Jones writes that in a late-Georgian addition at the back of the house there is a splendid library with a coved ceiling and an original early nineteenth century wallpaper of great beauty, in yellow and brown, which gives the effect of faded gold. [12]
Maurice Mahon also had the main street of Strokestown laid out between 1810 and 1815, and had a tall Georgian Gothic arch erected at the entrance to Strokestown Park, at one end of the main street. At almost one hundred and fifty feet wide, the main thoroughfare, leading up to the gates of the estate, was said to be the widest in Ireland at the time. Apparently Baron Hartland wanted it to be wider than the Ringstrasse in Vienna. [see 12]
Maurice, 1st Baron Hartland had three sons. The first, Thomas (1766-1835) succeeded as 2nd Baron Hartland in 1819. His mother lived another fifteen years after her husband died in 1819, and the museum tells us that receipts for her extravagant spending are kept in the archive.
When Thomas inherited the property in 1819 he hired John Lynn who created the porch, among other renovations. Lynn had served as clerk of works for the building of Rockingham House in County Roscommon, erected in 1810 for Robert, 1st Viscount Lorton to designs by John Nash. We saw pictures of Rockingham House when we visited King House, see my entry. Rockingham House no longer exists. Soon after working in Strokestown, Lynn moved up to Downpatrick, County Down. [13]
Terence Reeves-Smyth continues in Irish Big Houses: “In 1819 Lieutenant General Thomas Mahon, second Lord Hartland, employed the architect J[ohn] Lynn to carry out some more improvements, such as the addition of the porch and giant pilasters to the front. Except for the gardens, few changes were later carried out at Strokestown and it remained the centre of a vast 30,000 acre estate until the present century.”
Thomas the second baron was educated at the Royal School in Armagh, Trinity College Dublin and St. John’s College, Cambridge. He joined the military and became Major in the 24th Light Dragoons. In 1798 he was in command of a garrison in Carlow, where he trapped and killed many rebels. [14] In 1811 he married Catherine Topping, but they did not have any children. He later fought in the Napoleonic wars and in Argentina.
Terence Reeves-Smyth continues:
“In contrast to the exterior, the interior is quite intimate, with surprisingly small rooms – a product of the early date of much of the building. Early 18th century wood panelling survives in parts of the house including the main staircase hall, but many rooms were redecorated in regency times, such as the dining room which still has its early 19th century furniture, including a bath-sized turf bucket and pinkish-red damask wallpaper.“
Terence Reeves-Smyth continues: “Regency additions incorporated the study, which also retains its original furnishings, and the smoking room, which was converted into a laboratory and photography darkroom by Henry Pakenham-Mahon, an amateur scientist, in the 1890’s. The finest regency addition is the library at the back, originally built as a ballroom with a bowed wall at one end to accommodate musicians. This contains Chippendale bookcases and beautiful brown and gold wallpaper, made especially for the walls in the early 19th century.“
Reeves-Smyth continues, describing the kitchen which we did not see: “The old kitchen in the left wing of the house is approached from the dining room along a curved corridor, past store rooms for kitchen utensils and sporting equipment. Fitted with spits and ovens for baking, roasting and smoking, this kitchen has its original balustraded gallery which crosses the high ceilinged room lengthwise, the only example of its kind to survive in Ireland, especially in houses designed by Richard Castle. These galleries allowed the housekeeper to supervise the affairs below – one tradition has it that menus were dropped from the balcony on Monday mornings with instructions to the cook for the week’s meals.
“The wing to the right of the central block contains magnificent vaulted stables carried on Tuscan columns, similar to stables built by Castle for Carton (1739) and Russborough (1741). An underground passage links these stables to the yard on the north side of the house. The estate office was also in this wing, which meant the tenantry had to come here rather than to an office in the village to pay their rent.“
A photograph of the vaulted stables, by Henry Pakenham Mahon (1851-1922).
Maurice Craig tells us in his Irish Country Houses of the Middle Size: p. 21. “The practice of connecting the house with outlying offices by a tunnel seems to be peculiar to Ireland…Strokestown, Bellamont, Castle Coole and Lucan are amongst the Irish examples. In the nature of things, this is a feature of the grander houses, though it has been reported in connection with some of modest size.”
Thomas 2nd Baron married but had no children and his brother Maurice (1772-1845) succeeded as 3rd Baron Hartland when Thomas died in 1835. Maurice had joined the clergy, and was awarded a prebendary (an administrative role) in Tuam Cathedral in 1804.
In 1813 the 3rd Baron Hartland married Jane Isabella Hume of Humewood, County Wicklow, but also had no children and the title became extinct. He had another brother, Stephen, but he predeceased his brothers and had no children. The museum tells us that the 3rd Baron suffered with mental illness, though it does not give us specifics. He was declared insane just a year after he inherited the property in 1835.
The 3rd Baron Hartland married Jane Isabella Hume of Humewood, County Wicklow. Humewood, County Wicklow photograph courtesy of National Library of Ireland, photographer Robert French, Lawrence Collection Circa 1865 – 1914 NLI Ref. L_IMP_3853.
The Dictionary of Irish Biography tells us that it was Denis Mahon who brought a motion against Maurice claiming that he was mentally ill and incapable of caring for the estate. Maurice had allowed the lease to lapse for a portion of the estate and stopped collecting rent from the town of Ballykilcline and its surrounding area. This led to an official declaration stating Maurice was a “lunatic.” Denis was named executor of the estate as well as being named Maurice’s legal guardian.
The museum tells us that when he was declared insane in 1836, two cousins battled in the courts to inherit the property: Denis Mahon (1787-1847) and Marcus McCausland.
Marcus McCausland owned the property of Drenagh, Limavady in County Derry (now a wedding venue). His mother was Theodosia Mahon, a sister of the 1st Baron Hartland, who had married Conolly McCausland-Gage. The nine year court case decided in favour of Denis Mahon. As well as the now poorly managed property, he inherited debts.
Denis was the son of a brother of 1st Baron Hartland, Reverend Thomas Mahon (1740-1811). Reverend Thomas married Honoria Kelly, daughter of Denis Kelly of Castle Kelly, County Galway (also called Aughrane Castle, it has been demolished. It was purchased by Bagots in 1910, I’m haven’t found an ancestral link to these Bagots).
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
It was Denis Mahon who was then murdered during the Famine. The story is told in detail in the Famine Museum. The estate was badly run and tenants let and sublet their parcels of land, hence owned smaller and smaller portions of land to grow their crops.
Reeves-Smyth tells us: “Major Denis Mahon, who succeeded to Strokestown on the death of the third and last Lord Hartland in 1845 was so unpopular a landlord during the famine years that he was shot whilst returning from a meeting of the Roscommon Relief Committee in 1848, apparently on suspicion of chartering unseaworthy ships to transport emigrants from his estate to America. His successors were much better regarded and his great-granddaughter and last owner, Mrs. Olive Hales-Packenham-Mahon, was a much loved figure in this part of Ireland. She died in 1981, leaving a house filled with the trappings of three centuries of unbroken family occupation.“
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
Captain Denis Mahon chose to help his tenants to leave Ireland. He wanted to reduce his number of tenants. The 1838 Poor Law made a local tax for poor rates. In 1843 the act was amended and introduced new rates, charging landlords a tax for each tenant who had holdings of less than a value of £4. Landlords therefore tried to reduce the number of tenants.
The Famine Museum is introduced by a beautifully handwritten letter by tenants asking not for money or food, but work. The eloquent letter humanises those who were experiencing the poverty of the famine in the 1840s.
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
Arthur Young writes in his A Tour in Ireland in 1799 that “the poor live on potatoes and milk, it is their regular diet, very little oat bread being used and no flesh meat at all except on Easter Sunday and Christmas day.”
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
Denis Mahon tried to make the estate pay for itself, to pay off the debts he had inherited. He also tried to take care of his tenants. He had two agents, John Ross Mahon and Thomas Conry. He began relief efforts for his tenants in March 1846. 4000 people were provided with corn on a weekly basis at low or no cost, and after a harsh winter, he distributed free seed to his most needy tenants. He also had a soup kitchen set up.
John Ross Mahon wrote to him that the poor rates would exceed receipts of rent. By 1847 the conditions were worse and there was unrest amongst the tenants. Mahon began to evict tenants and to encourage others to emigrate. The Freeman’s Journal in 1848 states that “The evictions on the estate since Major Mahon had taken over amounted to 3006 people, including the 1,490 who were selected to emigrate.” Fewer than half of those who emigrated survived the trek to Dublin and the journey on the ship.
The building of the month entry in the National Inventory summarises: “Major Mahon, an improving landlord, sought to alleviate the situation by judicious depopulation and in 1847 organised the voluntary emigration of almost one thousand of his tenants to North America. However, a far greater number refused to move and were the subject of evictions involving almost 600 families and 3000 individuals. Returning from an evening meeting in Roscommon, where he had urged the Board of Guardians to keep the workhouse open for needy paupers, Major Mahon was fatally shot on the 2nd of November 1847. Three men were hanged for the murder and two were transported, but the true identity of the assassin or assassins has been debated ever since.”
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
The Famine Museum tells us that there were secret societies who sought to improve the conditions of the poor. A local one in Roscommon was called the “Molly Maguires.”
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
The man suspected to be the mastermind of the murder, Andrew Connor, probably escaped to Canada. Police followed to Canada to try to capture him but to no avail. A man named Patrick Hasty was hanged for the murder, along with two others.
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
Denis’s son Thomas predeceased him, childless, and the house passed to his daughter, Grace Catherine. Earlier in 1847, Grace had married Henry Sandford Pakenham (1823-1893), son of Reverend Henry Pakenham, Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, who was from Pakenham Hall in County Westmeath, now called Tullynally (see my entry, it is another Section 482 property which can be visited).
Henry Sandford Pakenham held the office of High Sheriff of County Roscommon in 1830. He was heir to the vast Pakenham and Sandford estates in counties Longford, Westmeath and Roscommon. He legally changed his name to Henry Sandford Pakenham Mahon by Royal Licence in 1847.
After Denis Mahon was killed his devastated daughter Grace moved to the Isle of Wight with her husband, who continued to manage the estate with the help of his agent.
He and Grace Catherine had several daughters, and a son, Henry Pakenham-Mahon (1851-1922).
Henry moved back to live in Strokestown. He was High Sheriff, Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant of County Roscommon, following in the footsteps of his father. He married Mary Burrard and Olive, as mentioned by Reeves-Smyth, was their daughter.
Henry Pakenham-Mahon was a keen horticulturalist and his main contribution to the estate was the development of the gardens. The family lived part-time in Strokestown Park and part-time in England. He developed a Pleasure Garden in the walled garden.
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
He also had an interest in photography, and he built a darkroom in Strokestown House.
His daughter Olive, born in 1894, first married Captain Edward Charles Stafford-King-Harman, from Rockingham House, County Roscommon, whom we came across in King House. Tragically, he died in the first world war in 1914. They had one daughter, Lettice. If Lettice had been a boy she would have inherited Rockingham. Olive and Lettice returned to live in Strokestown Park.
Olive married again, this time to Wilfrid Stuart Atherstone Hales, who also fought in the first world war, and later, in the second. A British garrison was set up in Strokestown House during the War of Independence. After an ambush nearby, Wilfrid Stuart Hales was sent to investigate, and he and Olive fell in love. On 18 April 1923 his name was legally changed to Wilfrid Stuart Atherstone Hales Pakenham Mahon by Deed Poll. He married Olive in 1921 and he changed his name after the death of her father in 1922. They went on to have several children. It was her son who sold the estate.
Olive Hales Pakenham Mahon dressed for a visit to Buckingham Palace in the 1930s.Strokestown Park, County Roscommon, August 2022.
The Pakenham Mahons did not spent much time in Strokestown due to Stuart Hales Pakenham Mahon’s military career, until they returned to live there in the 1950s.
Stuart Hales Pakenham Mahon was interested in finding water and mineral deposits by “dousing,” and the photography display we saw in the house also had information on this topic.
The property has a six acre walled garden and woodlands.
Westward Garage Ltd approached the Pakenham Mahons to buy their land, and terms were agreed. At first the garage only wanted to keep some land and they planned to sell the house, but then Jim Callery found the documents relating to the famine, and had the idea of setting up a famine museum. The company let Olive and her husband remain in the house. Jim Callery employed his cousin Luke Dodd to oversee restoration of the house. [15] In 1987 the house opened to the public, and the Famine Museum opened in 1994. The walled garden opened in 1997, and the herbaceous border is said to be the longest in either Ireland or the UK.
The following day there was a talk about the mausoleum at Strokestown, but we had to move on with our Heritage Week plans. The mausoleum was constructed within an earlier 17th century church and contains a crypt in which members of the Mahon Family were buried. Following years of careful and professional conservation and sympathetic landscaping, this ruin is again accessible and visible to visitors to Strokestown Park.
[6] Bernard, Sir Burke, editor, Burke’s genealogical and heraldic history of the landed gentry of Ireland, 4th ed. (London, U.K.: Burkes Peerage Ltd, 1958), page 471. I’m not sure if “Movilla” mentioned here refers to Moyveela townland.
[7] Reeves-Smyth, Terence. Irish Big Houses. Appletree Press Ltd (22 April 2009)
[12] 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. Note that Mark Bence-Jones claims that it was the 2nd Baron Hartland who laid out the main street of Strokestown and had the entrance built, but the National Inventory tells us that it was Maurice, 1st Baron Hartland.
I have not published an entry in a couple of weeks but have been working hard! I am working on my entry for Strokestown Park in County Roscommon at the moment, which I will publish soon.
Strokestown Park, County Roscommon.
I have updated the home page and each entry with the newly published 2023 open dates.
These list which properties are open on each calendar day of the year.
I have also been planning our trips around Ireland this year, to visit more Section 482 properties. There are no new properties on the list, although Portnason House in County Donegal had dropped off the list in 2022, and is now back on the list. Several other properties have dropped off the listing. I am sorry not to have visited Geragh in Sandycove in Dublin which is no longer listed. I also missed out on seeing Knocknagin House in Balbriggan, which I think sold last year, and is no longer listed – the same goes for Boland’s Lock in Tullamore.
I also didn’t get to visit Ballybur Castle in County Kilkenny, but it is still available to rent out, for weddings, and for group tours: see http://www.ballyburcastle.com/
The oddly named “Prison House” in County Mayo has also dropped off the list. I am also sorry that I did not get to see Cloughjordan House in County Tipperary before it dropped off the list. It remains a wedding and event venue, https://www.cloughjordanhouse.com/
I’m delighted I visited Claregalway Castle last year as it has now changed to be a section 482 accommodation listing. In corresponding with property owners in order to create my calendar, I was alerted to the fact that there are three types of listing for Section 482 properties. A property might be listed as “garden only,” such as Ballynatray or Oakfield Park. A property can be open to the public for sixty days. Or else a property can be listed as Accommodation. If it is listed as Accommodation it does not have to open to the public except when providing accommodation. Some accommodation properties do kindly list open dates for public visits.
Before I realised this distinction, several Accommodation listing owners generously opened their house to me for a tour. I want to highlight this distinction as it means you cannot show up at an accommodation listing expecting a tour!
Some Section 482 properties provide accommodation but are not classified under the Accommodation listing, for various reasons – for example, they may not be open for the required six months of the year. I would recommend that you contact the property before visiting, as they may be hosting a wedding or event.
The final property that has dropped off the Section 482 listing is a garden, Knockanree in County Wicklow. Unfortunately I missed out on visiting there also.
It just goes to show, I must try to visit places while they are on the list! Properties are generally on the list for a minimum of five years.
This year Stephen and I are treating ourselves to a stay in Ballyseede Castle in County Kerry, and we will also be revisiting the wonderful Bantry House. I have plotted out our year’s visiting, but even if we visit one property every weekend, we still won’t see every property!
Open dates in 2025: May 1-3, 8-10, 15-17, 22-24, 29-31, June 5-7, 12-14, 19-21, 26-27, July 3-5, 10-12, 17-19, 24-26, 31, Aug 1-2, 7-9, 14-24, 28-30, Sept 4-6, 2pm-6pm
Fee: adult €10, OAP €7, student €5
donation
Help me to pay the entrance fee to one of the houses on this website. This site is created purely out of love for the subject and I receive no payment so any donation is appreciated!
The Swiss-Italian stuccadores were brought to Ireland from England in 1738 by Robert Fitzgerald (1675-1744) 19th Earl of Kildare, who built both Leinster House in Dublin (first known as Kildare House until his son was raised to be Earl of Leinster) and Carton House.
Going back to its origins, the estate of Riverstown was purchased by Edward Browne (b. 1676), Mayor of Cork. He married Judith, the heiress daughter of Warham Jemmett (b. 1637), who lived in County Cork. The present house possibly dates from the mid 1730s, Frank Keohane tells us in Buildings of Ireland: Cork City and County. [2] A hopper with the date 1753 probably records alterations, when the gable end at one side was replaced by full-height canted bays.
Mark Bence-Jones describes Riverstown in his A Guide to Irish Country Houses (1988):
“…The house consists of a double gable-ended block of two storeys over a basement which is concealed on the entrance front, but which forms an extra storey on the garden front, where the ground falls away steeply; and a three-storey one bay tower-like addition at one end, which has two bows on its side elevation. The main block has a four bay entrance front, with a doorway flanked by narrow windows not centrally placed.” [3]
The tower-like third storey on part of the house was possibly added by architect Henry Hill around 1830, Keohane tells us. Henry Hill was an architect who worked in Cork, perhaps initially with George Richard Pain, and later with William Henry Hill and Arthur Hill.
As Riverstown and its plasterwork was described in 1750 in Smith’s History of County Cork, it must have been created before this, perhaps when Browne’s son Jemmet Browne was elevated to the position of Bishop of Cork in 1745. He later became Archbishop of Tuam.
Reverend Jemmett Browne at a meet of Foxhounds by Peter Tillemans, courtesy of Yale Centre for British Art.
Reverend Jemmett Browne gave rise to a long line of clerics. He married Alice Waterhouse, daughter of Reverend Thomas Waterhouse. His son Edward (1726-1777) became Archbishop of Cork and Ross, and a younger son, Thomas, also joined the clergy.
A portrait of Alice Waterhouse, wife of Bishop Jemmett Browne.
Edward Archbishop of Cork and Ross named his heir Jemmett (1753-1797) and he also joined the clergy. He married Frances Blennerhassett of Ballyseede, County Kerry (now a hotel and also a section 482 property, see my entry). If the tower part of the house was built in 1830 it would have been for this Jemmett Browne’s heir, another Jemmett (1787-1850).
In BeautiesofIreland (vol. 2, p. 375, published 1826), James Norris Brewer writes that: “the river of Glanmire runs through the gardens banked with serpentine canals which are well stocked with carp,tench, etc. A pleasant park stocked with deer, comes close to the garden walls. The grounds of this very respectable seat about in aged timber and the whole demesne wears an air of dignified seclusion.”
The first Jemmett Browne was friendly with Laurence Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy. The bawdiness of the novel demonstrates that clerics at the time led a different life than those of today! Jemmett Browne’s interest in fine stucco work was probably influenced by fellow clerics Bishop George Berkeley, Samuel “Premium” Madden and Bishop Robert Clayton. Samuel Madden recommended, in his Reflections and Resolutions Proper to the Gentlemen of Ireland that stucco is substituted for wainscot. [4] Bishop Clayton owned what is now called Iveagh House on St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin (see my entry, https://irishhistorichouses.com/2022/09/23/open-house-culture-night-and-heritage-week-dublin-visits/ ).
Portrait c. 1740 of Archbishop Robert Clayton (1695–1758) and Katherine née Donellan by James Latham, courtesy of National Gallery of Ireland. Known for his unorthodox views, at the time of his death Robert Clayton was facing charges of heresy.George Berkeley (1685-1753), Philosopher; Bishop of Cloyne, by John Smibert 1730 courtesy of National Portrait Gallery NPG 653.He was a friend of Reverend Jemmett Browne.
The stucco work is so important that the Office of Public Works feared it would be lost, as the house was standing empty in the 1950s before being purchased by John Dooley, father of the current owner, in around 1965. Under the direction of Raymond McGrath of the Office of Public Words, with advice from Dr. C. P. Curran, the authority on Irish decorative plasterwork, moulds were taken in 1955-6. The moulds are now displayed prominently in the home of Ireland’s President, Áras an Uachtaráin. (see my entry on the Áras in the entry on Office of Public Works properties in Dublin, https://irishhistorichouses.com/2022/01/21/office-of-public-works-properties-dublin/ )
Shortly after John Dooley purchased the property, the members of the Irish Georgian Society decided to help to restore the plasterwork.
The book published on the 50th anniversary of the Irish Georgian Society, by Robert O’Byrne, has part of a chapter on Riverstown and the Irish Georgian Society’s role in restoration of the Lafranchini plasterwork in the 1960s.
The book published on the 50th anniversary of the Irish Georgian Society has part of a chapter on Riverstown and the Irish Georgian Society’s role in restoration of the Lafranchini plasterwork in the 1960s. By this time, John Dooley had purchased Riverstown, after it has been standing empty. At the time, Dooley had not yet moved in, and the dining room was not preserved to the standard the Georgian Society would have liked. The book has a photograph of potatoes being stored in the dining room.
Photograph from Irish Georgian Society, by Robert O’Byrne. The photograph was published in the Cork Examiner in February 1965.We don’t know of course how temporary this storage was.
The entrance hall of Riverstown is also impressive, and the members of the Georgian Society also helped to clean the plasterwork in this room. The walls curve, and the room has an elegant Neoclassical Doric frieze and shapely Corinthian columns.
Mark Bence-Jones decribes: “The hall, though of modest proportions, is made elegant and interesting by columns, a plasterwork frieze and a curved inner wall, in which there is a doorcase giving directly onto an enclosed staircase of good joinery. To the left of the hall, in the three storey addition, are two bow-ended drawing rooms back to back. Straight ahead, in the middle of the garden front, is the dining room, the chief glory of Riverstown.”
The Lafranchini work in the dining room derives from Maffei’s edition of Agostini’s Gemme AnticheFigurate (1707-09). Frank Keohane notes that the Maffei’s engravings were also used for the decoration of the Apollo Room in 85 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin, also by the Lafranchini brothers.
The ceiling at Riverstown: winged figure of Father Time, rescuing Truth from the assaults of Discord and Envy, taken from the allegorical painting by Nicholas Poussin which he painted on the ceiling in France for Cardinal Richelieu in 1641 and now hangs in the Louvre, Paris.
C. P. Curran tells us that the history of the Lafranchini brothers is obscure, but they “represent one of the successive waves of stuccodores who from quite early periods swarmed over Europe from fertile hives in the valleys of either side of the Swiss Italian Alps….They worked in some unascertained way side by side with local guildsmen and introduced new motifs and methods. Their repertory of ornament was abundant and they excelled in figure work.” [4] They executed their work in Carton in 1739, Curran tells us, and in 85 St. Stephen’s Green in 1740.
Keohane tells us that the simple eighteenth century black-marble slab chimneypiece was installed in the 1950s when the house was saved by the Dooley family from ruination. It replaced a remarkable overmantel, now in an upper room, with great scrolled jambs garlanded with flowers and tufted with acanthus, and a comic mask in the centre of the frieze which possibly depicts Bishop Browne.
The work by the members of the Irish Georgian Society on the dining room in Riverstown was complete by the end of 1965. John Dooley continued the restoration of the rest of the house, and it is now kept in beautiful condition by his son Denis and wife Rita, with many treasures collected by the Dooleys. A 1970 Irish Georgian Society Bulletin, Robert O’Byrne tells us, reported further improvements made by the Dooleys. It tells us that one of the house’s two late-eighteenth century drawing rooms adjoining the dining room:
“has been given a new dado, architraves, chimney-piece, overdoors and overmantel. These have been collected by John Lenehan of Kanturk, who rescued them from houses in Dublin that were being demolished and inserted them at Riverstown.”
The two drawing rooms do indeed have splendid over mantel and overdoors. The drawing room has been hung with green silk wall covering. The Dooleys have shown fine taste for the decoration and maintenance of the rooms and I suspect John Dooley knew what he was doing when he purchased and thus saved the house.
A fine wooden staircase brings us upstairs to a spacious lobby containing a Ladies’ conversation chair. Keohane suggests the stair may have originally been open to the front hall, but is now hidden by a screen wall. He writes that this arrangement probably dates from c. 1784, when Phineas Bagnell was granted a long lease of the house.
The owners’ bedroom has an extraordinary carved marble mantel. It was probably originally in the room with the Lafranchini stuccowork. It has great scrolled jambs garlanded with flowers and tufted with acanthus, and a comic mask in the centre of the frieze which possibly depicts Bishop Browne, Frank Keohane tells us.
The Dooleys have a garden centre, which is situated behind the house. They maintain the gardens with its rolling lawns beautifully. The Glanmire river passes by the bottom of the garden.
[1] https://repository.dri.ie/catalog [2] p. 556, Keohane, Frank. Buildings of Ireland: Cork City and County. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2020.
[3] Bence-Jones, Mark A Guide to IrishCountryHouses. (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.
[4] Curran, C.P. RiverstownHouseGlanmire, County Cork and the Francini. A leaflet given to us by Denis Dooley.
I’m excited to report that the new Section 482 list has been published, for 2023. No new properties added, but a few have dropped off the list.
Order your calendar now to see at a glance which properties are open on what dates. The calendar costs €25 to cover printing and postage.
The calendar will feature:
1. A list of Section 482 properties, numbered. The number for the property is then used to refer to the property for each listed open date.
2. A calendar, with every property which is open for a visit per date listed on the date.
3. More complete list of the Section 482 properties spread through the calendar, with the information from the Revenue Section 482 list for each property. Accommodation properties will be included, but they will not be listed as open on individual dates in the body of the calendar as I understand that an accommodation property does not have to be open to the public.
4. A selection of photographs of Section 482 properties.
It will look something like this, A4 size (210 x 297 mm) ie. 8.3 x 11.7 inches, and is approximately 100 pages, full of pictures of section 482 properties which you can visit.
Open dates in 2025: May 4, 6-11, 13-18, 20-25, 27-31, June 1-30, July 1-31, Aug 1-31, Sept 2-7, 9-14, 16-21, 23-29, Oct 1-5, 7-12, 14-19, 21-26, 28-31, weekdays 11am-5pm, Sun 11am-4pm, Nov 29-30, Fri 5pm-9pm, Sat 10am-5pm
Help me to pay the entrance fee to one of the houses on this website. This site is created purely out of love for the subject and I receive no payment so any donation is appreciated!
Stephen and I visited King House during Heritage Week 2022. It is open to the public and is no longer a private home.
King House was built in 1720 for Henry King, 3rd Baronet. There was a house previously on the site built for his grandfather, Robert. It was used as a military barracks in later years. Now it is a museum that tells the story of the King family, the history of the military unit which occupied the building, and it also houses a collection of contemporary art, the Boyle Civic Art Collection and the McAleese Collection. You can take a “virtual tour” on their website.
John King arrived in Ireland from Staffordshire, England, in the time of Queen Elizabeth I, Anthony Lawrence King-Harmon tells us in his book, The Kings of King House. His family originally came from Feathercock Hall in Yorkshire.
The land had been previously controlled by the MacDermott clan. A room in King House tells us a few stories about the MacDermott clan. They had a rare victory over Queen Elizabeth I’s forces in the pass in the Curlew Mountains, near Boyle.
John King fought along with Sir Richard Bingham in Connaught during the Nine Years War. [1] In 1603 John King (1560-1636) was given, along with John Bingley, the lease of Boyle Abbey and its surrounding lands, in recognition for services rendered to the Crown. The Abbey had been used as a military barracks since the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII.
John married Catherine Drury, grand-niece of Sir William Drury, Lord Deputy of Ireland. They were the parents of Edward King, who was memorialised in John Milton’s poem, Lycidas, after he drowned in the Irish Sea. The King’s townhouse is now the home of the Society of Irish Pipers, Na Píobairí Uilleann, 15 Henrietta Street. A ceiling in the house features a bust of Milton, commemorating his poem to Edward King.
King House, 2022.King House, 2022.
The King House website tells us that John King’s main residence was in Dublin, in Baggotrath near what is now Baggot Street, but he built a “great castle” in 1607 in Boyle. By 1618 he had obtained an outright grant to the Abbey and and its 4127 acres. King-Harmon tells us that an “apocryphal” story claims that the title “Lay Abbot” gave the right to have more than one wife! He adds that this was not a privilege of which John King availed.
He was made “Muster General” of Ireland responsible for calling up personnel to assist with maintaining law and order in Ireland. At the time that he built his castle in Boyle, the population of Boyle was around 300, of whom thirty were English workmen or traders. Sir John was buried in Boyle Abbey.
As Muster Master, John King was in charge of weapons such as those above: a pike, musket, lance and sword.
Unfortunately we did not have time to visit Boyle Abbey this time, though we stopped to take a few photographs from the road – we will have to visit Boyle again.
Sir John’s daughters married well – Mary married William Caulfeild, 2nd Baron Caulfeild of Charlemont, County Armagh, who became the Master-General of the Ordnance for Ireland. Her sister Dorothy married Arthur Moore, son of Garret, 1st Viscount Moore of Drogheda.
John’s eldest son, Robert (d. 1657) was a supporter of Oliver Cromwell, and offered his services to the Parliamentarians. He fought in battles and has been credited with victory in the battle of Ballintubber. He was MP in the Cromwellian parliament in England, representing Roscommon, Sligo and Leitrim. He lived mostly in his home in Baggotrath in Dublin but built a house on the site of the present King House in Boyle. He died the year before Cromwell died, and the Kings immediately switched sides to support King Charles II.
King House, August 2022.
Robert King married twice (although not at the same time, so didn’t avail of the Lay Abbot’s rights!): first to Frances Folliott, daughter of Henry Folliott, 1st Lord Folliott, Baron of Ballyshannon (her sister married Richard Wingfield and was mother of 1st Viscount Powerscourt). Secondly, he married the widow of Edward Cecil, 1st Viscount Wimbledon, Sophia Zouche. Edward Cecil was the grandson of Queen Elizabeth I’s right hand man, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley.
Robert’s eldest son, John (1638-1676) first fought with the Cromwellians but then became a supporter of King Charles II. He married Catherine Fenton of Mitchelstown, County Cork. Her brothers predeceased her and she was heir to vast estates. John was created 1st Baron Kingston, of Kingston, County Dublin, in 1660, when he was also appointed as Privy Counsellor in Dublin.
Mitchelstown, County Cork, photograph courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.An older castle was demolished and it was rebuilt, as we see in this photograph, in the 1770s by Caroline Fitzgerald and her husband Robert King, 2nd Earl of Kingston.Mitchelstown, County Cork, photograph courtesy of the National Library of Ireland.
The land of Mitchelstown in County Cork passed into the hands of Maurice Fitzgibbon, the first White Knight, in the early part of the 14th century. The title of White Knight was an Anglo-Norman hereditary title in Ireland, one of three, the others being the Black Knight, or Knight of Glin, and Green Knight, or Knight of Kerry.
In 1608 Edmond Fitzgibbon the 9th White Knight died, as did his son Maurice, and it is said that they were poisoned. The inheritance of Mitchelstown passed to Edmond’s youngest granddaughter Margaret, who married Sir William Fenton. The castle then passed to Catherine Fenton, who brought the estate into the King family.
It was the descendants of John’s second son, Robert (abt. 1640-1707), who lived in County Roscommon, since descendants of the eldest son John 1st Baron Kingston lived in Mitchelstown Castle. John gave his younger brother Robert considerable lands in what was to become Rockingham, outside Boyle. John predeceased his brother Robert, dying in 1676, leaving two sons, who became 2nd and 3rd Barons Kingston.
In King House.Rockingham, County Roscommon entrance gate, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.Robert King (1657–1693), 2nd Baron Kingston by John Michael Wright courtesy of Ulster Museum.
Robert (abt. 1640-1707) of County Roscommon held the office of Member of Parliament (M.P.) for Ballyshannon between 1661 and 1666. He built a sumptuous house at Rockingham in 1673, after he married Frances Gore, daughter of Lt.-Col. Henry Gore, around 1670. She had been previously married to Robert Choppyn of Newcastle, County Longford.
Robert King, (d. 1707) 1st Baronet of Boyle Abbey, County Roscommon from the circle of John Closterman, courtesy of “mutualart.com”
Robert was created 1st Baronet King, of Boyle Abbey, Co. Roscommon [Ireland] on 27 September 1682. He held the office of Member of Parliament (M.P.) for County Roscommon between 1692 and 1699. He was also appointed Privy Counsellor in Ireland, and he held the office of Member of Parliament (M.P.) for Boyle between 1703 and 1707.
Robert’s brothers’ sons, the 2nd and 3rd Barons Kingston, still owned the property in Boyle. Robert King, 2nd Baron Kingston, and his uncle Robert 1st Baronet King of Boyle Abbey both supported William III, whereas most English families in Counties Sligo and Roscommon supported King James II. Both Robert Kings became heavily involved in military operations. Robert 1st Baronet King played a major role in the Battle of Aughrim. Anthony Lawrence King-Harman tells us that it was during this battle that Robert saved the life of the head of the MacDermot family, the original owner of Rockingham.
To add to complications of the time, Robert 1st Baronet of Boyle Abbey’s son John (1673-1720) supported King James II. He sat in King James’s parliament in Dublin. Fortunately he later escaped retribution from William III when William was made King, and his father must have forgiven him also as he was his father’s heir. John became 2nd Baronet King of Boyle Abbey.
The brother of Robert 2nd Baron Kingston, John (abt. 1664-1727/28), or Jack as he was known, eloped with a servant girl from King House named Peggy O’Cahan (or Kane). They moved to France and married, and he joined court of “The Pretender,” son of James II, also known as James III. Jack converted to Catholicism. His brother did not have children so Jack would have been his brother’s heir. However, due to his Catholicism, his family took legal action to disinherit him. Robert 2nd Baron Kingston instead changed his will so that his uncle Robert, 1st Baronet King of Boyle Abbey, would inherit the Mitchelstown estates and the estate in Boyle. Jack, however, disputed this. King-Harmon tells us in The Kings of King House that Jack, with the support of James II and Catholic circles in London, launched a legal action to show that the actions of his family were in contravention of the marriage settlements of his father, and before that of William Fenton, his mother’s father. He was successful and he obtained possession of Mitchelstown in 1699, but not the estate lands. Jack, who had become 3rd Baron Kingston after his brother’s death, also achieved a Royal pardon from William III for his previous support of King James II and his son.
Margaret O’Cahan (c. 1662-1721), standing in a black habit, and holding a string of rosary beads, Attributed to Garret Morphy (c.1655-1715), courtesy Adam’s 6 Oct 2009 she married James King 3rd Baron Kingston.
Jack’s actions threatened the Baronets of Boyle Abbey and their ownership of Rockingham. However, they managed to hold on to their estate and the threat receded somewhat with the accession of William and Mary to the throne. Jack, with an eye to their future, raised his children as Protestants in Mitchelstown.
Robert 1st Baronet of Boyle Abbey’s daughter Mary married Chidley Coote of Cootehall, County Roscommon, son of Richard Coote 1st Lord Coote, Baron of Colloony, County Sligo. His son John, who became 2nd Baronet of Boyle Abbey upon his father’s death, married Elizabeth Sankey, but he had no children. Elizabeth went on to marry secondly, John Moore, 1st Baron Moore of Tullamore and thirdly, Brabazon Ponsonby, 1st Earl of Bessborough. Her mother, Eleanor Morgan, was from Cottlestown, County Sligo, a property added in 2022 to the Section 482 list, which we have yet to visit.
The 2nd Baronet moved from Rockingham back to the house in Boyle, which by this time may have been known as King House. He died in March 1720 and his brother Henry (1681-1739) became 3rd Baronet King of Boyle Abbey.
It was Henry 3rd Baronet who built the King House that we see today. Rockingham burnt down, probably sometime shortly after the death of the 1st Baronet. King House in Boyle was destroyed by fire in 1720, so Henry immediately started to rebuild. King-Harman tells us he hired either Edward Lovett Pearce, or William Halfpenny, an assistant to Edward Lovett Pearce, as architect. The newer house may incorporate walls of the earlier house. A pleasure garden was created across the river, and it is now a public park. It contains a plinth that used to hold a statue of King William III but that statue disappeared!
Henry (1681-1739) 3rd Baronet King of Boyle Abbey, by Robert Hunter.When the portrait was advertised for sale by Adam’s auctioneers, 6 Oct 2009, it was identified as being by Charles Jervas (1675-1739).The museum in King House is less certain as to who designed it, suggesting it could have been Edward Lovett Pearce, Richard Cassel (or Castle), or William Halfpenny.In King House.
Mark Bence-Jones points out in his A Guide to Irish Country Houses (1988) that King House is not situated in a demesne but in the centre of a town. It is surrounded by thick walls. He describes it as a large “u” shaped mansion of two storeys over basement with a partly gabled attic. [2]
The photograph from the National Inventory shows the eleven bay garden front which faces the river, with its three bay pedimented breakfront and large central Venetian window in the upper storey.
The side facades have three Venetian windows, one on top of another, the top being within a gable.
Bence-Jones points out that: “As at Ballyhaise, County Cavan and King’s Fort, County Meath, there is vaulting in other storeys than just the basement; in fact, all four storeys are vaulted over. This was, according to Rev Daniel Beaufort, a fire precaution, Sir Henry King having naturally been fire-conscious after the fire in the earlier house.“
Two wings project from the main centre block of the house, and are each two bays wide. The centre block is three bays wide with a centre triangular gable. Bence-Jones describes the deep cornice over the wings, and the round-headed ground floor windows with keystones and blocking.
On the front facade Bence-Jones describes a “plain massive doorway.” I find the entire centre front surprisingly plain with few windows, except the large arched ones either side of the doorway and the fanlight over the door, and two dormer windows in the roofline. Inside the museum, in a description of the building it is suggested that the front facade was not completed.
The National Inventory adds that there is “a seven-bay three-storey extension to south-west with pitched slated roof with piecrust cornice and red brick chimneystacks. Single-storey roughcast-rendered outbuildings to front. Site bounded by rubble stone wall with carved stone gate piers and cast-iron gates.“
Inside the front door is a long and narrow hall or gallery with lovely flagstone floor, which is original to the house. You can see also the vaulted ceiling, and wood panelling on the walls.
Sir Henry King, 3rd Baronet of Boyle Abbey, served as MP for either Boyle or County Roscommon for thirty three years. He married Isabella Wingfield, daughter of Edward Wingfield of Powerscourt, County Wicklow (her brother was the 1st Viscount of Powerscourt). Henry died in 1739 and was succeeded by his son Robert (1724-1755), 4th Baronet of Boyle Abbey.
Robert 4th Baronet became MP for Boyle also and was created Baron Kingsborough in 1748. It was he who bought the house in Henrietta Street in Dublin. He became Grand Master of the Freemasons in Ireland. He died unmarried. On his death, the Barony of Kingsborough became extinct.
On his death the entailed parts of the estate went to his younger brother Edward (1726-1797), who became 5th Baronet of Boyle Abbey. Edward was also a Grand Master for the Freemasons and MP for County Roscommon, and Privy Counsellor in Ireland. He inherited King House and large parts of the Sligo and Roscommon estates. However, a later will of his brother was found after his brother’s death, and all the unentailed land was left to their younger brother Henry. Henry did not marry but the dispute over inheritance led to lawsuits and caused family rifts, King-Harmon’s book The Kings of King House tells us.
Edward King (1726-1797), 5th Baronet of Boyle Abbey and eventually, 1st Earl of Kingston.
Edward the 5th Baronet married Jane Caulfeild, daughter of Thomas Caulfeild of Donamon Castle, County Roscommon (still standing, it now belongs to the Divine Word Missionaries). Edward was ambitious and when his cousin James King 4th Baron Kingston died in 1761 with no sons, he applied for a peerage and was granted it, becoming the 1st Baron Kingston of the second creation. He built a second mansion in Rockingham, which he called Kingston Hall.
Edward King, later 1st Earl Kingston courtesy Adam’s 6 Oct 2009 by Robert Hunter (c.1715/20-c.1803).
He arranged with 4th Baron Kingston that his son would marry the heir to Mitchelstown, Caroline Fitzgerald. The 4th Baron Kingston’s son William predeceased him in 1755, dying childless. The 4th Baron’s daughter Margaret married Richard Fitzgerald, son of the 19th Earl of Kildare. Their only child was a daughter, Caroline (1754-1823).
Robert Fitzgerald (1675-1744) 19th Earl of Kildare, after Frederick Graves, courtesy of Adam’s auction 15th Oct 2019.
By marrying into the family of the Barons of Kingston, Mitchelstown came into the family of the Baronets of Boyle Abbey. Caroline and Edward’s son Robert were to marry when just 15 and 16 years old.
King House, 2022.In King House.
Meanwhile Edward, after intense lobbying, had become Viscount Kingsborough in 1767 and Earl of Kingston in 1768.
King House, 2022.King House, 2022.King House, 2022.King House, 2022.In King House.
Edward, now Earl of Kingston, and his family moved into Kingston Hall in 1771, and King House was kept as a second residence, but following a fire in 1778, Edward decided to dispose of it. It was bought by the British army in 1795, and became the depot of the Connaught Rangers until taken over by the Irish army in 1922. It was abandoned and in ruins by 1987 when bought by Roscommon County Council, and it was restored and opened to the public in 1995.
King House, 2022.Information in King House about Boyle in the 1700s.King House, 2022.King House, 2022.In King House.
Edward Earl of Kingston’s daughter Jane married Laurence Harman Parsons (1749-1807), son of Laurence Parsons, 3rd Baronet, who was later created 1st Earl of Rosse, and Anne Harman. Lawrence Harman Parsons changed his surname to Harman.
In King House.
The 1st Earl of Kingston’s daughter Frances married Thomas Tenison, and their son Lt.-Col Edward King-Tenison lived in Kilronan Castle in County Roscommon and his wife, Lady Louisa Mary Anne Anson, was the origin of the use of the word “loo” for toilet! (according to The Peerage website). I’m not sure why! (Kilronan Castle is now also a hotel, https://www.kilronancastle.ie/ )
Edward’s heir, Robert (1754-1799) became the 2nd Earl of Kingston and married his cousin Caroline Fitzgerald of Mitchelstown when he was just 15.
Robert King, 2nd Earl of Kingston by Hugh Douglas Hamilton.Caroline, née Fitzgerald, Countess of Kingston, wife of Robert King 2nd Earl of Kingston, by Hugh Douglas Hamilton.
They had nine children but later separated. When young, they lived in London, and toured the world, until they took up residence at Mitchelstown Castle. Mary Wollstonecraft, who later died after giving birth to Mary Shelley née Godwin who wrote Frankenstein, was tutor to the 2nd Earl of Kingston’s children. Mary Wollstonecraft later became a writer, intellecutal and radical, spending time in Paris during the French Revolution, and wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women, as well as several novels. She remained friendly with King’s daughters, who imbibed Mary’s feminism. Caroline, unhappy in her life with Robert, moved to England, and Robert took a lover, Elinor Hallenan, who bore him two more children.
Jeremiah Barrett (d.1770) A conversation portrait of the Children, William, Elizabeth and Margaret King, of James 4th (last) Baron Kingston of Mitchelstown with a pet doe and dog courtesy of Adam’s 6 Oct 2009. The surviving daughter Margaret, daughter of Elizabeth Meade (Clanwilliam), inherited the vast Mitchellstown Estate of the White Knights. She married Richard Fitzgerald of Mount Ophanlis, and their only daughter Caroline married, as arranged, the 2nd Earl of Kingston thus uniting the two branches of the King family. Life at Mitchellstown was recorded by two famous employees of the Kings, Arthur Young the agriculturalist and Mary Wollstonecruft who probably sketched out the basis of Vindication of the Rights of Women whilst governess to the King children. It was not without excitement, in 1799 Lord Kingston shot dead Colonel Fitzgerald, his wife’s illegitimate half-brother in the hotel in Mitchellstown for abducting his 17 year old daughter Mary Elizabeth and his eldest daughter Margaret having married the 2nd Earl of Mount Cashell left him to befriend Shelley in Italy and is The Lady in ‘The Sensitive Plant’. Provenance: Rockingham House.
On 18 May 1798 Robert 2nd Earl of Kingston was tried by his peers in the Irish House of Lords for the murder of Colonel Henry Gerald Fitzgerald, who had seduced the Earl’s daughter. He was acquitted as no witnesses came forward – a benefit of being in the House of Lords was that one was not tried in a general court, but tried in a court consisting of the other members of the House of Lords.
Colonel Henry Gerald Fitzgerald was the illegitimate son of Caroline’s half-brother. Her father had remarried after her mother died. Caroline raised Henry Gerald along with her own family. Caroline brought her daughter Mary with her when she separated her husband and moved to England. It was Mary who was seduced by her cousin, despite him having a wife. As Mary Wollstonecraft later had lovers, perhaps young Mary King was influenced by her governess’s romantic nature. Colonel Fitzgerald regularly visited Caroline and Mary in their new home in London. One day, Mary disappeared, and was found installed in a lodging house, regularly visited by her lover, Colonel Fitzgerald. King-Harman tells the story in The Kings of King House. Her father shot and killed Colonel Fitzgerald.
Another daughter, Margaret, married Stephen Moore, 2nd Earl Mountcashell. Also influenced by Mary Wollstonecraft’s radicalism, she supported the United Irishmen and Anthony Lawrence King-Harman writes that she may have been with Edward Fitzgerald when he was mortally wounded in Dublin. She left her husband for George Tighe (1776-1837) of Rossana, County Wicklow, an Irishman living in Rome, and became close friends with Wollstonecraft’s daughter Mary Shelley. She wrote children’s books and treatises on pre- and post-natal care.
Robert’s son George (1770-1839) became the 3rd Earl of Kingston upon his father’s death in 1797. Robert left the Boyle properties to his second son, Robert Edward (1773-1854), who later became Viscount Lorton, the name chosen from a local place-name.
Brothers George, 3rd Earl of Kingston, Robert, 1st Viscount Lorton, and Admiral James William King, by Hugh Douglas Hamilton.This large portrait in the dining room is General Robert King (1773-1854), 1st Viscount Lorton, who was the son of Robert King, 2nd Earl of Kingston.
Robert Edward King (1773-1854) inherited Kingston Hall at Rockingham. He joined the military and distinguished himself in the Caribbean. When he inherited in 1797, he returned to Ireland and joined the Roscommon Militia and worked his way up to become a General. With Rockingham, however, came debt. In 1799 he married his first cousin, Frances Parsons Harman, daughter of his aunt Jane who had married Lawrence Parsons Harman (1749-1807), who owned the Newcastle Estate in County Longford. Robert worked hard to reduce the debt, and was a tough landlord, evicting many tenants.
In the centre, Frances née Parsons Harman (1775-1841) who married Robert Edward King (1773-1854). She is flanked by their daughter Jane King, who married Anthony Lefroy, and Frances King, who married Right Reverend Charles Leslie of Corravahan.
Robert Edward was created Baron Erris of Boyle, County Roscommon in 1800 and in 1806, Viscount Lorton of Boyle, County Roscommon. His support of the Act of Union in 1800 would have helped in his rise within the Peerage.
Viscount Lorton decided to build a new house on the Rockingham estate, which is a few kilometers from Boyle. Robert O’Byrne tells us that the previous house, Kingston Hall, remained in use and became known as the Steward’s House. [4] The new house was designed by John Nash and was ready by 1810. Lorton also modernised the estate. Landscaper Humphrey Repton helped with the design of the outbuildings, gate houses and demesne. The house no longer exists, and the demesne is now part of Lough Key Park. An impressive gate lodge remains, and a chapel built by Lord Lorton in 1833 on the site of a 17th century church also built by the Kings. An icehouse, gazebo called the Temple and a tunnel which ran from the mansion to the lake and was used by tradesmen is open for visitors.
Rockingham House.Rockingham.Rockingham.Rockingham.Rockingham.Rockingham.Rockingham.Model of Rockingham House created by Leaving Certificate studentsof Ballinamore Vocational School Fergal Conefrey, Conor Lee and Declan Sammonwith construction teacher Mr. Tommy Flynn.The interior of Rockingham.The interior of Rockingham.Looking out from Rockingham.
It was a time of trouble with tenants, as outlined in The Kings of King House. Robert evicted Catholic tenants due to uprisings. In famine years, however, he lowered rents and provided work.
King House, 2022.King House, 2022.In King House.
Viscount Lorton’s daughters married well. Jane married Anthony Lefroy of Carriglass Manor, County Longford. Jane Austen had been in love with his father, Thomas Lefroy, and Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice may have been based upon him. Caroline married Robert Gore-Booth, 4th Baronet, of Lissadell, County Sligo (another section 482 property). Frances married Right Reverend Charles Leslie, who we came across when we visited Corravahan, another Section 482 property, in County Cavan.
Viscount Lorton’s heir was Robert (1804-1869). He had an unhappy marriage, and his wife, Anne Gore-Booth, daughter of Robert Newcomen Gore-Booth, 3rd Baronet of Lissadell, had an affair which produced a son. Robert and his father sought to make sure that this son would not inherit the King estates.
The Kings of Rockingham were a “cadet branch” of the family of the Kings of Mitchelstown, County Cork. Viscount Lorton’s older brother inherited the Mitchelstown estate and the title of 3rd Earl of Kingston. Let’s make a diversion and look at what was happening at the Mitchelstown estate.
After her husband Robert 2nd Earl of Kingston’s death, Mitchelstown remained in the hands of Caroline (née Fitzgerald), and she returned to run the estate for a further twenty-five years. She kept her son George at arm’s length, King-Harman tells us.
George King (1779-1839), later 3rd Earl of Kingston, painting by Romney.
George did not inherit Mitchelstown until he was 53 years old. He was godson of King George III and was a friend of the Prince Regent who later became King George IV. He had several illegitimate children with a lover when he was in his twenties, with whom he lived in the Bahamas. He went on to marry Helena Moore, daughter of Stephen, 1st Earl of Mountcashell, County Tipperary. Before his father died, he was titled Viscount Kingsborough between 1797 and 1799, and he held the office of Member of Parliament (M.P.) for County Roscommon between 1797 and 1799. He became Colonel of the local Militia, the Mitchelstown Light Dragoons, part of the North Cork Militia.
When his father died, he succeeded as the 3rd Baron Kingston of Rockingham, Co. Roscommon, the 3rd Viscount Kingston of Kingsborough, Co. Sligo, 3rd Earl of Kingston, and 7th Baronet King, of Boyle Abbey, Co. Roscommon.
George 3rd Earl of Kingston’s eldest son, Edward, predeceased him. Edward, who was Viscount Kingsborough, became interested in Mexico while in Oxford and devoted his life and finances to the production of a monumental work, The Antiquities of Mexico. He fell into debt, partly because his father did not allow him enough to run Mitchelstown, and was imprisoned in Ireland, where he developed typhus and died in 1837. In his lifetime he presented a number of antiquities to Trinity College Dublin.
It was therefore George’s second son, Robert Henry (1796-1857) who became 4th Earl of Kingston in 1839. By 1844 the Mitchelstown estate had been taken over by the Encumbered Estaes Court. Outstanding debts went back to James 4th Baron, King-Harman tells us. Despite this, Robert Henry’s life continued at Mitchelstown in rather high style, also despite the famine. Sadly, parts of the estate were sold off bit by bit and eventually Robert Henry had a mental breakdown and ended up in an asylum in England. [for more about the 4th Earl of Kingston see the Irish Aesthete’s blog. [5]
His younger brother James became the 5th Earl of Kingston, but died two years later without issue, and with him the Barony of Kingston of Mitchelstown became extinct. He married Anna Brinkley from Parstonstown (Birr), who was thirty years his junior, and King-Harman tells us that she “was destined to play a major role in the affairs of Castle [of Mitchelstown] right through to the present century.” They had no children, so the estate would have gone to the Viscounts Lorton of Boyle.
James King (1800-1869), 5th Earl of Kingston, who married Anna Brinkley.Anna née Brinkley, wife of the 5th Earl of Kingston, who lived in Mitchelstown.
Robert, who was to become 2nd Viscount Lorton, and his wife Anne née Gore-Booth, had a son, Robert (1831-1871), and a daughter, Frances. Anne then had a son, Henry Ernest, with her lover, Vicomte Ernest Satgé St Jean. 1st Viscount Lorton tried to take action to ensure that Henry Ernest would not inherit.
In order to avoid Henry Ernest from inheriting Mitchelstown, they had to break the entail on Mitchelstown and James the 5th Earl of Kingston promised money from the Mitchelstown estate to the 3rd Viscount Lorton, for signing away the entail. Instead, Mitchelstown was left to his wife. The money promised to 3rd Viscount Lorton formed a debt, falling to Anna Brinkley, which gave her much difficulty later.
Before continuing, I must mention the youngest son of 1st Viscount Lorton, Laurence Harman King (1816-1875). He married Mary Cecilia Johnstone of Alva, Scotland. His father drew up a settlement which in the event that the 2nd Viscount’s legitimate son did not have an heir, Rockingham would go to his younger son, Laurence Harman, who in 1838 had legally changed his name to Laurence Harman King-Harman.
Laurence Harman King-Harman also inherited the estate of Newcastle in County Longford. He was chosen for the inheritance in preference to his dissipated brother. Lawrence’s mother, recall, was Frances Parsons, daughter of Laurence Harman Parsons and and Jane King (daughter of 1st Earl of Kingston). Laurence Harman Parsons’s father was Laurence Parsons, 3rd Baronet of Birr Castle, County Offaly, and his mother was Anne Harman, whose family owned Newcastle, County Longford.
The property of Newcastle had belonged to the Chappoyne family. A daughter of that family married Anthony Sheppard, and the property passed into the ownership of the Sheppard family. It then passed via a daughter, Frances Sheppard, who married Wentworth Harman (c. 1635-1714). On Frances’s death in 1766 the property passed to her son Reverend Cutts Harman (1706-1784), Dean of Waterford. He had no children, so he left the property to his nephew, Laurence Parsons, who had married Jane King. In return, Laurence Parsons added the name Harman to his surname in 1792 to become Laurence Harman Parsons-Harman.
Laurence Harman Parsons was created 1st Baron Oxmantown, Co. Wexford in 1792, and 1st Earl of Rosse in 1806.
Laurence and Jane had a daughter, Frances, and no son. Frances married Robert Edward King, 1st Viscount Lorton in 1799. Laurence left all of his property to his wife Jane, which included Newcastle and two houses in St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin. Upon the birth of Frances and Robert Edward’s second son, whom they named Laurence Harman King, Lady Rosse decided to leave Newcastle to him. In 1838 when Lady Rosse died, just a year after Laurence Harman King’s marriage, he inherited Newcastle. At that time he also added Harman to his surname to become Laurence Harman King-Harman. [6]
Let us go back, however, to his brother Robert, who was upon his father’s death to become 2nd Viscount Lorton. The reason that 1st Viscount Lorton was worried about the second, illegitimate grandson inheriting, is that the first grandson, Robert Edward, had suffered a serious illness and had only one child, a daughter.
The 1st Viscount Lorton died in 1854 and was buried in the family vault in Boyle Abbey.
Obituary for 1st Viscount Lorton.King House, 2022.King House, 2022.In King House.
The 1st Viscount Lorton’s son Robert had been a long time waiting to come into his inheritance and had meanwhile spent his time dissipating the family’s money and by the time of his marriage, according to The Kings of King House, had a reputation for drinking too much alcohol. In the same year that she was proven to have an affair, Robert became semi-paralysed, perhaps after severe attack of delirium tremens from his drinking.
Robert and his wife Anne moved to Frankfurt in 1840 and his health improved somewhat. However it was here that his wife met Vicomte Ernest de Satgé St Jean. He too was married. He and Anne accumulated debts at the gaming tables which Robert had to pay, and when his wife left him, Ernest de Satgé St Jean moved into the home of the Kings in Frankfurt!
When 1st Viscount Lorton heard of the shenanigans, he sent an old friend to bring his son and his son’s wife back to Ireland. He did not succeed, and the story of Robert’s wife’s debts reminds me of “Buck” Whaley’s, with the Vicomte entering in convoluted schemes in order to try to gain money to pay off his debts, as described in The Kings of King House.
When the 1st then 2nd Viscounts Lorton died, the 2nd Viscount’s legitimate son Robert Edward (1731-1771) came into ownership of Rockingham, and became 3rd Viscount Lorton and 7th Earl of Kingston. He died two years later, after felling large quantities of timber at Rockingham to pay off his debts.
In King House.
In the meantime, the younger son, Henry Ernest Newcomen King (named Ernest after his birth father) had not been legally recognised as illegitimate. Therefore when his brother died, he became 8th Earl of Kingston, although he did not inherit as much land as he could have, since the entail on Mitchelstown had been broken, and his uncle Laurence Harman inherited Newcastle and Rockingham. He joined the Connaught Rangers, which were housed in the old King home, and he gained the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and was a representative Irish peer in the House of Lords. He married Florence, daughter and co-heir of Colonel Edward King-Tenison of Kilronan Castle in County Roscommon. He changed his name to surname King-Tenison in 1883. He held the office of Lord-Lieutenant of County Roscommon between 1888 and 1896.
The Coronation Robe and Crown in the dining room of King House belong to his son the 9th Earl of Kingston’s wife, Ethel Lisette, made to be worn at the coronation of King Edward VIII in 1936, which did not happen since he abdicated the throne.
On the death of the 7th Earl of Kingston, the 1st Viscount Lorton’s youngest son, Harman King-Harman, inherited Rockingham and the Boyle estates as life tenant. He remained living in Newcastle, County Longford. He had six sons and his eldest Edward King-Harman (1838-1888) would inherit Rockingham and Newcastle.
To continue with the story of Mitchelstown, in 1873 Anna née Brinkley, wife of James 5th Earl of Kingston, remarried, to William Webber. King-Harman writes that Webber allowed his relationship to the tenants to deteriorate. Meanwhile, the old debts were paid off by selling off tenanted lands under the Wyndham Land Acts. Anna, the Countess of Kingston, expressed a wish that upon her husband’s death, Mitchelstown should revert to the King family, in the person of Lt Colonel Alec King-Harman of Newcastle, great grandson of the 1st Lord Lorton. However, the castle was burnt by the IRA during the Civil War in 1922, and Alec sold off the estate.
The 2nd Earl of Kingston laid out much of the town of Mitchelstown. King Square includes Georgian houses of Kingston College and its Protestant chapel and family vault built by James, 4th Baron Kingston, and the square also includes the building where James founded the first Grand Lodge of Freemasons in Ireland. The 3rd Earl erected a drinking fountain in the square. The inn at Kilworth where Colonel Fitzgerald was shot is now a private residence. [The Kings of King House]
Edward Robert King-Harman (1838-1888), son of Laurence Harman King-Harman, inherited Newcastle in County Longford and Rockingham in Roscommon. He joined the military and fought in the siege of Dehli during the Indian Mutiny, then returned to Ireland in 1859 and became Honorary Colonel of the 5th Battalion of the Connaught Rangers whose depot was now in King House. He developed an interest in politics and the cause of Home Rule and was returned to the House of Commons in Ireland as a Conservative Home Ruler for County Sligo. He moved from Newcastle into Rockingham. He managed to leave Rockingham to his daughter, Fay, although her brothers contested this. She managed to keep Rockingham, however, along with her husband, Dr. Thomas Stafford, who was a Catholic. Fay’s son took the name Edward Stafford King-Harman.
Meanwhile Edward’s younger brother Wentworth (1840-1919) inherited Newcastle from his brother. He joined the military in Britain. When he inherited, he immersed himself in running Newcastle. It was his son Alec who inherited Mitchelstown. Alec also joined the military. He left Newcastle to a cousin Douglas King-Harman, and by that time the estate was reduced to just 50 acres, and he sold it in 1951. Before leaving Newcastle, Douglas set aside most of the family records and took them to England with him and published a book in 1959, Kings Earls of Kingston.
Edward Stafford King-Harman died in WWI. His father was raised to the British peerage as 1st Baronet Stafford in 1914. Edward married Olive Pakenham Mahon from Strokestown in Roscommon – I will be writing about it soon as it is also a Section 482 property.
King House, 2022.In King House.
It was his second son, Cecil Stafford King-Harman, who inherited Rockingham and became 2nd Baronet Stafford. Having taken a degree in Agriculture in New Zealand, Cecil was able to bring the estate back into good working order. Unfortunately, Rockingham was destroyed by fire in 1957 and although most of the furniture and pictures were saved, Cecil decided to sell. The house was demolished, and half the estate became Lough Key Forest Park. On Cecil’s death the baronetcy became extinct.
When used as a Barracks, the military erected a mezzanine level in the Main Salon. After Independence, in the 1940s the Irish army used the room for dances every Wednesday.
King House is now home to the Connaught Rangers museum as well as the Boyle Civic Art Collection, and the house also plays host to musical, dramatic and cultural events.
The barracks in King House served as a recruitment centre. We can see some of the posters that encouraged Irish men to join the British Army during the wars.
King House, 2022.King House, 2022.In King House.
As home to the Connaught Rangers, Robert O’Byrne tells us that the house was able to accommodate 12 officers and 260 non-commissioned officers and private foot soldiers, as well as a 30-bed hospital and stabling for horses. [7]
In King House.
During the War of Independence, the Barracks was strongly garrisoned and the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Black and Tans were stationed outside the barracks near the main gate. Many arrests of Irishmen fighting for Independence were made, and prisoners were held in the barracks. Two prisoners managed to escape, James Molloy and Michael Dockery.
Sadly, reflecting the turbulent times in Ireland, Michael Dockery was later killed by anti-Treaty forces during the Irish Civil War that took place after Ireland gained Independence (the Civil War occurred because many did not agree with the Treaty signed to give Ireland independence since the British kept six counties in Ulster, leading to the division of the island of Ireland). When the new Republic of Ireland continued to use King House as a barracks it was called Dockery Barracks after Michael Dockery.
A couple of rooms in King House now contain the gifts which were given to President Mary McAleese, which is a lovely collection of the crafts of various nations.
King House, 2022.King House, 2022.King House, 2022.King House, 2022.King House, 2022.King House, 2022.King House, 2022.In King House.
Based in the courtyard, Úna Bhán Tourism Co-operative runs a traditional craft shop showcasing locally produced crafts as well as operating an accommodation booking service and at weekends there is a farmers market in the courtyard.
[1] Connolly, Paul. The Landed Estates of County Roscommon. Published by Paul Connolly, 2018.
[2] 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.
Open dates in 2025: all year, except Jan 1, and Dec 25, 9am-8pm
Fee: Free
donation
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Former Hibernian Bank,now H&M store, 2013.Photograph courtesy of Swire Chin, Toronto.
The former Union Bank, latterly the Hibernian Bank, building was designed by William George Murray (1822-1871), in association with Thomas Drew (1838-1910), and construction began in 1864. [1] Originally it was built with just four bays on College Green and two bays on Church Street.
The Bank of Ireland was formed in 1783. The Hibernian Bank was founded as The Hibernian Joint Stock and Annuity Company in April 1825, and later changed its name to The Hibernian Bank. A group of Dublin businessmen apparently formed the company in response to anti-Catholic discrimination by the Bank of Ireland. The bank aimed itself primarily at the Dublin business community. It opened its only branch in Dublin on 20 June 1825 with 1063 shareholders, many of them London based. The Hibernian Bank was taken over by the Bank of Ireland in 1958. [2]
William George Murray joined the architectural firm of his father, William Murray. William George Murray, the Dictionary of Irish Architects tells us, was architect to the Dundalk, Enniskillen & Londonderry Railway Company, for whom he built the railway station in Enniskillen, Fermanagh as well as many others. He was also architect to the South Dublin Union. [3] Thomas Drew was also an architect in the same firm, and he worked with Murray on the original building for the Union Bank. The Union Bank failed after just six months, and the building was bought by the Hibernian Bank.
William George Murray also designed the Royal College of Physicians on Kildare Street in Dublin after the previous building had been burnt in a fire. Murray also designed many more banks, including the Provincial Bank on College Green (now part of the Westin hotel), and insurance offices.
Thomas Drew was employed by the Hibernian Bank to add more bays to each side, from 1873-76. Thomas Drew later became President of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects and President of the RIAI, and held the Chair of Architecture in the new National University of Ireland. He married a sister of William G. Murray, Anne Adelaide, in 1871. Among his most important building, Archiseek tells us, are the Ulster Bank branch on Dame Street (the interior of which has been destroyed), the Trinity College Graduates Memorial Building, Rathmines Town Hall, and St. Anne’s Cathedral in Belfast. [4]
The building features a wonderful “chateau-esque” tower topped with ornate wrought iron railings and finials. It has another tapering belltower-type turret at the other side which is actually a chimneystack.
It is built chiefly in limestone, in the Italian Gothic style, with arcades, and has four storeys. The ground storey has deeply moulded arches splaying from octagon piers, and the corner toward College Green is squared off and one entrance door is positioned there on the ground floor, in an arched opening with Corinthian pilasters, under an ornately carved triangular pediment. There is another ornate door entrance at the other end of the building on Dame Street.
The Appraisal in the National Inventory gives us a summary:
“This exuberant former bank commenced operation as the Union Bank in 1864, designed by William G. Murray, assisted by Thomas Drew... It is constructed in an Italian Gothic Revival idiom with arcading to the main floors. The bosses and colonnettes of polished pink granite, and capitals and roundels of Portland stone by C.W. Harrison, create a strong contrast with the pale grey limestone that dominates the façade. The quality and profusion of ornament is particularly striking, with many very fine details, such as the carved timber door, the chimney structure, the carved tympanums and the aedicule [niche or pediment] to the roof of the corner bay. It is located within a group of significant historic bank buildings which line the north and south sides of College Green. The former banking hall has been recently converted for use a large retail outlet.” [5]
The Inventory description continues: “…Shouldered-arch door opening to elliptical-arch recess to corner bay, with carved Corinthian pilasters with engaged marble colonnettes, double-leaf battened timber door with trefoil-headed upper panels, and having carved limestone voussoirs [wedge shaped stones forming an arch] and moulded keystone and triangular pediment with carved tympanum bearing lettering ‘Hibernian Bank’, and egg-and-dart cornice.” [5] “Tympanum” comes from the word drum, like the eardrum of the ear, so is like a drum-skin, and in architecture it means the surface between the lintel of a doorway or window and the arch above it.
The National Inventory describes the doorway at the other end of the building on Dame Street: “Shoulder-arch door opening to west end of main facade, with Corinthian pilasters to reveals having engaged marble Corinthian colonnettes, limestone step, overlight, exquisitely carved timber panelled door, and voussoirs with keystone above, set within open-bed pedimented porch supported on hanging-posts, with carved panels to spandrels, and lettering ‘Hibernian Bank 1824’ to frieze.” [5]
The first floor has more deep semicircular arches divided by columns of polished red granite topped with ornately sculpted capitals. The windows in the first floor are square headed. On the arcading on the first floor level the arches over the windows contain the initials of the banks – the older bays have the initials of the Union Bank and the newer bays, the Hibernian Bank. The windows of the first storey have slightly pointed arched hood mouldings with carved limestone masks to the stops.
The second floor has semi-circular headed openings and the storey above has round dormer windows in the roof. The stone carving was done by C.W. Harrison of Great Brunswick Street. The dressings are in Portland stone, with the finer carving in Caen stone. [6]
The south elevation to St. Andrew Street was added in 1925-8 by Ralph Byrne.
The National Inventory tells us:
“College Green facade (north) has seven bays; Church Lane facade has nine bays, two at north end being similar to main facade and of same date, three to south end being similar at ground and first floors and built 1925-8, other four-bay section being different and built 1873-6; and five-bay facade to St. Andrew Street (current main entrance) built 1925-8.” [5]
The description continues: “Limestone balconette to first floor of middle bays of Trinity Lane elevation, supported on corbels, window openings to same floor being set within square-headed frame; same bays have paired square-headed window openings to second floor, with gablet above having limestone copings with finial, and carved tympanum. Three south end bays of Trinity Lane elevation and all bays of St. Andrew Street elevation have diminutive round-headed window openings to second floor; first floor has elliptical-arch double-height openings with decorative cast-iron balconettes to middle of each opening, with timber casement windows having margined upper lights with fanlights.” [5]
The former bank now houses a branch of the clothing shop H&M.
The interior has a vaulted ceiling, which was traditionally left lit up at night for display. It has a semicircular recess on one side. The arched ceiling is very ornate. Archiseek describes it as “arched and groined, and springs from a stone cornice all around; it is covered with coffered panels arranged in a kind of diaper, with rich centre flowers in each.” Note that a “groin” is described by Alistair Rowan in his Buildings of Ireland: Northwest Ulster, as a sharp edge at the meeting of two cells of a cross-vault, and coffering, he tells us, are sunken panels, square or polygonal, decorating a ceiling, vault or arch [see my entry of architectural definitions, https://irishhistorichouses.com/2020/04/18/architectural-definitions/ ]
Help me to pay the entrance fee to one of the houses on this website. This site is created purely out of love for the subject and I receive no payment so any donation is appreciated!
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Clare:
1. Barntick House, Clarecastle County Clare – section 482
2. Bunratty Castle, County Clare
3. Craggaunowen Castle, Kilmurray, Sixmilebridge, County Clare
4. Dunguaire Castle, Kinvara, County Clare
5. Kilrush House, County Clare – ‘lost,’ Vandeleur Gardens open
6. Knappogue or Knoppogue Castle, County Clare
7. Mount Ievers Court, Sixmilebridge, County Clare
8. Newtown Castle, Newtown, Ballyvaughan, County Clare– section 482
9. O’Dea’s, or Dysert Castle, County Clare
Places to Stay, County Clare
1. Armada House, formerly Spanish Point House, Spanish Point, County Clare €
2. Ballinalacken Castle, Lisdoonvarna, County Clare – hotel €€
3. The Carriage Houses, Beechpark House, Bunratty, County Clare €
4. Clare Ecolodge, formerly Loughnane’s, Main Street, Feakle, Co Clare
5. Dromoland Castle, Newmarket-on-Fergus, Co. Clare – hotel €€€
6. Falls Hotel (was Ennistymon House), Ennistymon, Co. Clare €€
7. Gregan’s Castle Hotel, County Clare€€€
8. Loop Head Lightkeeper’s Cottage, County Clare€€ for 2; € for 4-6
9. Mount Callan House and Restaurant, Inagh, County Clare – B&B
10. Mount Cashel Lodge, Kilmurry, Sixmilebridge, County Clare €
11. Newpark House, Ennis, County Clare€
12. Smithstown Castle (or Ballynagowan), County Clare€ for 4-8 for one week
13. Strasburgh Manor coach houses, Inch, Ennis, County Clare€
Whole House Rental, County Clare
1. Inchiquin House, Corofin, County Clare – whole house rental€ for 6-10
2. Mount Vernon lodge, County Clare – whole house accommodation€ for 7-11 people
Bunratty Castle, County Clare, photograph by Chris Hill 2014, for Tourism Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool. [1]
Mark Bence-Jones writes in his A Guide to Irish Country Houses:
p. 49. “(O’Brien, Inchiquin, B/PB; and Thomond, E/DEP; Studdert/IFR; Russell/IFR; Vereker, Gort, VPB) One of the finest 15C castles in Ireland, standing by the side of a small tidal creek of the Shanon estuary; built ca 1425, perhaps by one of the McNamaras; then held by the O’Briens, who became Earls of Thomond, until 6th Earl [Barnabas O’Brien (d. 1657)] surrendered it to the Cromwellian forces during the Civil War. A tall, oblong building, it has a square tower at each corner; these are linked, on the north and south sides, by a broad arch just below the topmost storey. The entrance door leads into a large vaulted hall, or guard chamber, above which is the Great Hall, the banqueting hall and audience chamber of the Earls of Thomond, with its lofty timber roof. Whereas the body of the castle is only three storeys – there being another vaulted chamber below the guard chamber – the towers contain many storeys of small rooms, reached up newel stairs and by passages in the thickness of the walls. One of these rooms, opening off the Great Hall, is the chapel, which still has its original plasterwork ceiling of ca 1619, richly adorned with a pattern of vines and grapes. There are also fragment of early C17 plasterwork in some of the window recesses. After the departure of the O’Briens, a C17 brick house was built between the two north towers; Thomas Studdert [1696-1786], who bought Bunratty early in C18, took up residence here in 1720. Later, the Studderts built themselves “a spacious and handsome modern residence in the demesne: and the castle became a constabulary barracks, falling into disrepair so that, towards the end of C19, the ceiling of the Great Hall collapsed. Bunratty was eventually inherited by Lt-Com R.H. Russell, whose mother was a Studdert, and sold by him to 7th Viscount Gort [Standish Robert Gage Prendergast Vereker (1888-1975)] 1956. With the help of Mr Percy Le Clerc and Mr John Hunt, Lord Gort carried out a most sympathetic restoration of the castle, which included removing C17 house, re-roofing the Great Hall in oak and adding battlements to the towers. The restored castle contains Lord Gort’s splendid collection of medieval and C16 furniture, tapestries and works of art, and is open to the public; “medieval banquets” being held here as a tourist attraction. Since the death of Lord Gort, Bunratty and its contents have been held in trust for the Nation.” [2]
Bunratty Castle, County Clare, Photograph by Chris Hill 2014 for Tourism Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool. (see [1])Bunratty Castle, County Clare, Photograph by Chris Hill 2014 for Tourism Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool. (see [1])Bunratty Co Clare National Library of Ireland stereo pairs collection STP_1858. (Dublin City Library and Archives) [3]Bunratty Castle Co Clare National Library of Ireland Lawrence Collection taken between 1880 and 1914, L_CAB_00962 (Dublin City Library and Archives) [3]
3. Craggaunowen Castle, Kilmurray, Sixmilebridge, County Clare
Craggaunowen Pre-Historic Park, County Clare, photo by Stephen Power 2014 for Tourism Ireland, Ireland’s Content Pool. (see [1])
“Early medieval 500AD-1500: The most common form of house style during this period was the ringfort –a circular area of earth surrounded by a bank and ditch. In some cases, stone was used in the defensive enclosure and these are known as cashels. Over 45,000 examples still remain today. Also dating from this period were crannogs (from the Irish crann – tree) – an artificial island built in the shallow areas of lakes with the houses surrounded by a timber palisade or fence. These can be spotted in the landscape as small tree covered islands close to the lake shore – both the ringforts and crannogs most commonly contained circular houses. A reconstruction of a crannog dwelling can be found at Craggaunowen, Co. Clare
“This was also a time when Christianity was introduced to Ireland and whereas the early churches of the 6th and 7th centuries were of timber, evidence of stone churches appear from the late 8th century. These were simple rectangular buildings of about 5m long with a high steep pitched roof. The only doorway had a flat-topped lintelled opening. The early Irish monasteries of the 9th and 10th centuries, such as Clonmacnoise, had larger churches and monastic buildings also included the drystone beehive hut or clochan, as can be seen at Skellig Michael, and also the Round Tower, built between the 10th and 12th century, which consisted of a narrow tower up to 30m high tapering at the top with a conical roof.” [4]
The Craggaunowen website tells us: “Craggaunowen Castle - built by John MacSioda MacNamara in 1550 a descendant of Sioda MacNamara who built Knappogue Castle in 1467. After the collapse of the Gaelic Order, in the 17th century, the castle was left roofless and uninhabitable. The Tower House remained a ruin until it and the estate of Cullane House across the road, were inherited in 1821 by ”Honest” Tom Steele, a confederate of Daniel O’Connell, Steele had the castle rebuilt as a summer house in the 1820s. He used it and the turret on the hill opposite for recreation. His initials can be seen on one of the quoin-stones to the right outside. “The Liberator”. By the time of the First Ordnance Survey, in the 1840s, the castle was “in ruins”. After Steele in 1848 the lands were divided, Cullane going to one branch of his family, Craggaunowen to another, his niece Maria Studdert. Eventually the castle and grounds were acquired by the “Irish Land Commission”. Much of the land was given over to forestry and the castle itself was allowed to fall into disrepair. In the mid-19th century, the castle, herd’s house and 96 acres were reported in the possession of a Reverend William Ashworth, who held them from a Caswell (a family from County Clare just north of Limerick). In 1906, a mansion house here was owned by Count James Considine (from a family based at Derk, County Limerick). Craggaunowen Castle was restored by John Hunt in the 1960s – he added an extension to the ground floor, which for a while housed part of his collection of antiquities. The collection now resides in the Hunt Museum in the city of Limerick.” [5]
Mark Bence-Jones writes in A Guide to Irish Country Houses (1988):
p. 115. “(Martyn/LGI1912; Gogarty/IFR; Russell, Ampthill, B/PB) An old tower-house with a bawn and a smaller tower, on a creek of Galway Bay; which was for long roofless, though in other respects well maintained by the Martyn family, of Tulira, who owned it C18 and C19, and which was bought in the present century by Oliver St John Gogarty, the surgeon, writer and wit, to save it from threat of demolition. More recently, it was bought by the late Christabel, Lady Ampthill, and restored by her as her home; her architect, being Donal O’Neill Flanagan, who carried out a most successful and sympathetic restoration. The only addition to the castle was an unobtrusive two storey wing joining the main tower to the smaller one. The main tower has two large vaulted rooms, one above the other, in its two lower storeys, which keep their original fireplaces; these were made into the dining room and drawing room. “Medieval” banquets and entertainments are now held here.”
Timothy William Ferrers writes about it on his website:
“KILRUSH HOUSE, County Clare, was an early Georgian house of 1808.
“From 1881 until Kilrush House was burnt in 1897, Hector Stewart Vandeleur lived mainly in London and only spent short periods each year in Kilrush.Indeed during the years 1886-90, which coincided with the period of the greatest number of evictions from the Vandeleur estate, he does not appear to have visited Kilrush.
“In 1889, Hector bought Cahircon House and then it was only a matter of time before the Vandeleurs moved to Cahircon as, in 1896, they were organising shooting parties at Kilrush House and also at the Cahircon demesne.
“Hector Stewart Vandeleur was the last of the Vandeleurs to be buried at Kilrush in the family mausoleum. Cahircon House was sold in 1920, ending the Kilrush Vandeleurs’ direct association with County Clare. Hector Vandeleur had, by 1908, agreed to sell the Vandeleur estate to the tenants for approximately twenty years’ rent, and the majority of the estate was purchased by these tenants.
“THE VANDELEURS, as landlords, lost lands during the Land Acts and the family moved to Cahircon, near Kildysart.
“In 1897, Kilrush House was badly damaged by fire.
“During the Irish Land Commission of the 1920s, the Department of Forestry took over the estate, planted trees in the demesne and under their direction the remains of the house were removed in 1973, following an accident in the ruins.Today the top car park is laid over the site of the house.
“Vandeleur Walled Garden now forms a small part of the former Kilrush demesne. The Kilrush demesne was purchased by the Irish Department of Agriculture as trustee under the Irish Land Acts solely for the purpose of forestry. The Kilrush Committee for Urban Affairs purchased the Fair Green and Market House.” [6]
Mark Bence-Jones writes about Knoppogue, or Knappogue, Castle in A Guide to Irish Country Houses (1988):
p. 180. “(Butler, Dunboyne, B/PB) A large tower-house with a low C19 castellated range, possibly by James Pain, built onto it. Recently restored and now used for “medieval banquets” similar to those at Bunratty Castle, Co Clare.”
7. Mount Ievers Court, Sixmilebridge, County Clare
The website has a terrific history of the house. First, it tells us:
“Mount Ievers Court is an 18th c. Irish Georgian country house nestled in the Co. Clare countryside just outside the town of Sixmilebridge. The house was originally the site of a 16th c. tower house called Ballyarilla Castle built by Lochlann McNamara. The tower house was demolished in the early 18th c. to construct the present house, built between 1733-1737 by John & Isaac Rothery, for Col. Henry Ievers.
“Mount Ievers Court has been home to the Ievers family for 281 years and since then generations of Ievers and their families have worked hard to maintain the house in order to ensure that the estate retains a viable place in the local community and Ireland’s heritage long into the future. Mount Ievers is currently owned by Breda Ievers née O’Halloran, a native of Sixmilebridge, and her son Norman. Norman is married to Karen, an American by birth, who has a keen interest in Irish history & the family archives.“
Mark Bence-Jones writes in A Guide to Irish Country Houses (1988):
p. 214. “(Ievers/IFR) The most perfect and also probably the earliest of the tall Irish houses; built ca. 1730-37 by Colonel Henry Ievers to the design of John Rothery, whose son, Isaac, completed the work after his death and who appears to have also been assisted by another member of the Rothery family, Jemmy. The house, which replaced an old castle, is thought to have been inspired by Chevening, in Kent – now the country house of the Prince of Wales – with which Ievers could have been familiar not only through the illustration in Vitruvius Britannicus, but also because he may have been connected with the family which owned Chevening in C17. Mount Ievers, however, differs from Chevening both in detail and proportions; and it is as Irish as Chevening is English. Its two three storey seven bay fronts – which are almost identical except that one is of faded pink brick with a high basement whereas the other is of silvery limestone ashlar with the basement hidden by a grass bank – have that dreamlike, melancholy air which all the best tall C18 Irish houses have. There is a nice balance between window and wall, and a subtle effect is produced by making each storey a few inches narrower than that below it. The high-pitched roof is on a bold cornice; there are quoins, string-courses and shouldered window surrounds; the doorcase on each front has an entablature on console brackets. The interior of the house is fairly simple. Some of the rooms have contemporary panelling; one of them has a delightful primitive overmantel painting showing the house as it was originally, with an elaborate formal layout which has largely disappeared. A staircase of fine joinery with alternate barley-sugar and fluted balusters leads up to a large bedroom landing, with a modillion cornice and a ceiling of geometrical panels. On the top foor is a long gallery, a feature which seems to hark back to the C17 or C16, for it is found in hardly any other C18 Irish country houses; the closest counterpart was the Long Room in Bowen’s Court, County Cork. The present owners, S.Ldr N.L. Ievers, has carried out much restoration work and various improvements, including the placement of original thick glazing bars in some of the windows which had been given thin late-Georgain astragals ca. 1850; and the making of two ponds on the site of those in C18 layout. He and Mrs Ievers have recently opened the home to paying guests in order to meet the cost of upkeep.”
The website tells of the ancient origins of the family, and goes on to explain:
“A parchment found in the sideboard at Mount Ievers in July 2012 maintains that Henry Ivers arrived in Ireland in 1640 from Yorkshire, where the family had been settled since arriving with William the Conqueror nearly six hundred years earlier. It also records that Henry settled in County Clare in 1643 when he was appointed Collector of Revenue for Clare and Galway.“
Newtown Castle, photograph fron National Library of Ireland, flickr constant commons.
www.newtowncastle.com , Open dates in 2025: Jan 6-Dec 19 Mon-Fri, National Heritage Week 16-24, 10am-5pm Fee: Free
The website tells us: “The historic Newtown Castle has occupied a prominent position in Ballyvaughan since the 16th century. Having lain derelict for many years, the castle’s restoration began in 1994, completed in time for the opening of the Burren College of Art in August of that year.
“Newtown Castle is once again a vibrant building in daily use, central to the artistic, cultural and educational life of the Burren. It is open free of charge to the public on week days. Newtown Castle is also available to hire for: wedding ceremonies, small private functions or company events.”
Maurice Craig and Desmond Fitzgerald the Knight of Glin describe it in their book Ireland Observed. A handbook to the Buildings and Antiquities: “This sixteenth-century tower, nearly round in plan, rises from a square base, on which is the entrance door. Ingeniously places shot-holes protect its four sides.” [7]
Maurice Craig also writes about Newtown in his book The Architecture of Ireland from the Earliest Times to 1880:
“There is a small class of cylindrical tower-houses: so small that it is worth attempting to enumerate them all, omitting those which appear to be thirteenth-century (and hence not tower-houses). They are Cloughoughter, County Cavan (which is dubiously claimed for the fourteenth century); Carrigabrack, East of Fermoy County Cork; Knockagh near Templemore County Tipperary; Ballysheeda near Cappawhite County Tipperary; Golden in the same county; Crannagh now attached to an eighteenth century house near Templetuohy in the same county; Balief County Kilkenny; Grantstown near Rathdowney County Leix; Barrow Harbour County Kerry; Newtown near Gort in County Galway; Doonagore County Clare also by the sea; Faunarooska, Burren, County Clare; and Newtown at the North edge of the Burren, also in County Clare.
“The last of these is in some ways the most interesting, being in form a cylinder impaled upon a pyramid. Over the door (which is in the pyramid) there is a notch in the elliptical curve traced by the cylinder, and in this notch is a gunhole covering a wide sector of the sloping wall below. At some other castles, for example, Ballynamona on the Awbeg river, there is a feature using the same principle, which is not easy to describe. On each face of the building there is what looks at first site like the “ghost” or creasing of a pitched roof, but is in fact a triangular plane, about a foot deep at the top, decreasing to nothing at the base. In the apex there is a gunhole. Aesthetically the effect is very subtle.” [8]
Newtown Castle, courtesy of National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. [9]
The Castle was built in 1480 by Diarmuid O’Dea, Lord of Cineal Fearmaic. The uppermost floors and staircase were badly damaged by the Cromwellians in 1651. Repaired and opened in 1986, the castle houses an extensive museum, an audio visual presentation and various exhibitions.
Free car/coach parking and toilets Tea rooms and bookshop Chapel Modern History Room 1700AD – 2000AD Museum – Local artefacts 1000BC – 1700AD Audio – visual presentation – local archaeology Medieval masons and carpenters workshop Roof wall – walk to view surrounding monuments
Places to Stay, County Clare
1. Armada House, formerly Spanish Point House, Spanish Point, County Clare €
The is a Victorian house, originally called Sea View House.
The website tells us:
“In 1884 the local Roman Catholic Bishop, James Ryan, expressed a wish to start a primary and secondary school in Miltown Malbay, a short distance from Spanish Point House, but his vision was unrealised for many years to come.
“In 1903 the bishop’s estate donated £900 to the Mercy Sisters to establish a school, but things did not happen until 1928, when three houses owned by the Morony estate were offered for sale to the Mercy Sisters with the intention of establishing a school at Spanish Point. The Moronys were a family of local landlords who had owned a significant number of properties in the Spanish Point and Miltown Malbay area between 1750 and 1929, including Sea View House, Miltown House, and The Atlantic Hotel.
“The Moronys were responsible for much of the development of the locality of Spanish Point, which began in 1712 when Thomas Morony took a lease of land, later purchased by his eldest son, Edmund, divided it into two farms and leased it to two local landlords for thirty-one years. Francis Gould Morony willed Sea View House, which he built in 1830, to his wife’s niece, Marianne Harriet Stoney, who married Captain Robert Ellis. The house was inherited by the Ellis family and one of their sons – Thomas Gould Ellis – became the son and heir.
“Almost a century later, in January 1928, a successor, Robert Gould Ellis, sold the property to the Mercy Sisters for £2,400 and in 1929 Colonel Burdett Morony sold Woodbine Cottage to the nuns for £300. Colonel Burdett Morony was a son of widow Ellen Burdett Morony of Miltown House, a woman who was quite unpopular amongst her tenants for rack-renting to such an extent that a boycott was operated against her. Woodbine Cottage, now part of the local secondary school building, was a summer residence of the Russell family and part of the Morony estate.
“On 19 March 1929 – the feast of St Joseph – a deed of purchase was signed and Sea View House became St Joseph’s Convent. The coach house, stables and harness rooms were fitted out as classrooms and a secondary school was opened on 4 September 1929.
“In 1931 the west wing was used as dormitories for boarders for the first time. In 1946 Wooodbine Cottage was converted into three classrooms and Miltown House (the Morony family seat, built in the early 1780s by Thomas J. Morony, who developed the town of Miltown Malbay) was also bought by the nuns and became the convent of the Immaculate Conception and a day school, while St Joseph’s was given over to boarding pupils.
“In 1959 a new secondary school was opened in part of Miltown House and in Woodbine Cottage by Dr Patrick Hillery, then Minister for Education. He originally came from Spanish Point and was later to become President of Ireland.
“In 1978 the boarding school at St Joseph’s closed, due to falling numbers, following the introduction of free secondary education and free school transport, which allowed pupils a greater choice of schools. The house was then given by the sisters to Clare Social Services as a holiday home for children, and was called McCauley House after the Venerable Catherine McCauley – founder of the Mercy Order.
“In September 2015 Clare Social Service sold the former convent to Pat and Aoife O’Malley, who restored it as a luxury guesthouse and re-named it Spanish Point House.”
2. Ballinalacken Castle (house next to), Lisdoonvarna, Co Clare – hotel €€
Photograph from National Library of Ireland, constant commons, Flickr, Ballinalicken Castle, County Clare.
The website tells us that the property has been in the O’Callaghan family for three generations, and is now run by Declan and Cecilia O’Callaghan. The rooms look luxurious, some with four poster beds, and the hotel has a full restaurant.
The website tells us: “The original house was owned by the famous O’Brien clan – a royal and noble dynasty who were descendants of the High King of Ireland, Brian Ború. The house , castle and 100 acres of land was bought by Declan’s grandfather Daniel O’Callaghan, in 1938 and he and his wife Maisie opened it as a fine hotel. It was later passed to Daniel’s son Dennis and his wife Mary and then to his son, Declan. Declan and Cecilia have three children who also assist in the family business.“
“Standing tall on a limestone outcrop, our very own Castle, Ballinalacken Castle, is a two-stage tower house which was built in the 15th or early 16th century. It is thought the name comes from the Irish Baile na leachan (which means “town of the flagstones/tombstones/stones”).
10th Century: The original fortress is built by famous Irish clan, the O’Connors – rulers of West Corcomroe.
14th Century: The fortress itself is found and Lochlan MacCon O’Connor is in charge of its rebuilding.
1564: Control of West Corcomroe passes to Donal O’Brien of the O’Brien family.
1582: The lands are formally granted by deed to Turlough O’Brien of Ennistymon. After the Cromwellians triumphed in the area, five of Turlough’s castles are razed to the ground – but Ballinalacken is saved as it was not on the list of “overthrowing and demolishing castles in Connaught and Clare.”
1662: Daniel dies and grandson Donough is listed as rightful holder of the Castle.
Mark Bence-Jones writes in his A Guide to Irish Country Houses (1988):
p. 26. “(O’Brien/LGI1912) A single-storey house with a curved bow, close to an old keep on a rock. The seat of the O’Brien family, of which Lord Chief Justice Peter O’Brien, Lord O’Brien of Kilfenora (known irreverently as “Pether the Packer”) was a younger son.”
“A warm welcome awaits you at The Carriage Houses, situated in the grounds of Beechpark House, Bunratty, in the heart of County Clare on the west coast of Ireland.
“Part of the estate of a former Bishop’s Palace, the Carriage Houses have been restored to provide a retreat away from the frenetic pace of the modern world. We invite you to relax in your own luxury suite, complete with all modern amenities, and succumb to a slower pace of life while you are with us.”
4. Clare Ecolodge, formerly Loughnane’s, Main Street, Feakle, Co Clare
www.clareecolodge.ie Open dates in 2025: June 1-August 31, Wed-Sun, Aug 16-24, 2pm-6pm Fee: Free
The website tells us:
“Clare Ecolodge at Loughnane’s, Feakle, in the heart of East Clare, is a unique family-run guest accommodation experience. We also offer group and self-catering accommodation as well as residential courses. The buildings, which have been in the family for over 100 years, were renovated 10 years ago. Since then we have been welcoming guests from all over the world. Clare Ecolodge at Loughnane’s offers a wide variety of accommodation to suit the needs of individuals and groups visiting Feakle for a residential courses or using the village as a base to explore the wild and beautiful landscape of County Clare. Feakle is an ideal location from which to discover the East Clare countryside. Steeped in history and heritage, the area is known for its fine walks, stunning lakes, rugged mountains and of course its vibrant Irish traditional music scene. Loughnane’s offers a unique blend of tranquillity and fun giving guests a genuine Irish experience.
“Clare Ecolodge at Loughnane’s in Feakle has been designated by the Irish State as a building of significant historical, architectural interest and members of the public are invited to view the building (free of charge) at the following times from June 1 to August 31 from Wednesday to Sunday between 2pm and 6pm.
Clare Ecolodge; The Energy Story:
“Clare Ecolodge was created in 2018 to signify the changes which we have implemented over the past two years at Loughnane’s Guesthouse/ Hostel. We have converted all our rooms in the main house to large private double and family rooms.In May 2018 we installed 30 Solar Photovoltaic (PV) panels on the roof of the main building. Look up and see for yourself!Since then we have been producing between 20 to 60kw hours per day.
“In May 2018 we also installed an air to water heat pump system. This is a low usage eco-water heating system powered by electricity.This heats all our water requirements for showers, laundry and kitchen requirements. We have not turned on our oil burner since installation. The average yearly energy requirements for an Irish household is approximately 4000kwh. Our energy system has produced this in the past 3 months. In that time we have avoided 2.5 tonnes of CO2.We use between 5 and 15kwh per day. The surplus is sent back to the grid at the transformer at the top of the village. We currently receive zero compensation for the excess electricity we generate but the ESB charges the community for the usage of this electricity.
“We estimate that we are currently at least 50% off-gird.Our main hot water and energy requirements are in the summer months. In high season there are more showers used and laundry needed. Our current energy system can handle this with little effort.
“For the past decade we have been growing our own vegetables and herbs for use in our kitchen.
Next phase – Winter time
“Our Solar PV panels are powered by light rather than heat so will work in winter, albeit not for periods as long in the summer. We aim to install a battery storage system so we can manage the energy we generate to be used at the most opportune times.We aim to install a second heat pump for our central heating requirements. This will effectively reduce our oil consumption to zero.We aim to install a wind turbine system on our 12 acre farm behind the main house. This will be used as a back up to bridge the energy generation gap between winter and summer.“
5. Dromoland Castle, Newmarket-on-Fergus, Co. Clare– hotel €€€
Dromoland Castle, County Clare, photo care of Dromoland Castle, for Tourism Ireland 2019, Ireland’s Content Pool. (see [1])
Mark Bence-Jones writes in A Guide to Irish Country Houses (1988):
p. 109. “(O’Brien, Inchiquin, B/PB) Originally a large early C18 house with a pediment and a high pitched roof; built for Sir Edward O’Brien, 2nd Bt; possibly inspired by Thomas Burgh, MP, Engineer and Surveyor-General for Ireland. Elaborate formal garden. This house was demolished ca 1826 by Sir Edward O’Brien, 4th Bt (whose son succeeded his kinsman as 13th Lord Inchiquin and senior descendant of the O’Brien High Kings) and a wide-spreading and dramatic castle by James and George Richard Pain was built in its place. The castle is dominated by a tall round corner tower and a square tower, both of then heavily battlemented and machicolated; there are lesser towers and a turreted porch. The windows in the principal fronts are rectangular, with Gothic tracery. The interior plan is rather similar to that of Mitchelstown Castle, Co Cork, also by the Pains; a square entrance hall opens into a long single-storey inner hall like a gallery, with the staircase at its far end and the principal reception rooms on one side of it. But whereas Mitchelstown rooms had elaborate plaster Gothic vaulting, those at Dromoland had plain flat ceilings with simple Gothic or Tudor-Revival cornices. The dining room has a dado of Gothic panelling. The drawing room was formerly known as the Keightley Room, since it contained many of the magnificent C17 portraits which came to the O’Brien family through the marriage of Lucius O’Brien, MP [1675-1717], to Catherine Keightley, whose maternal grandfather was Edward Hyde, the great Earl of Clarendon. The other Keightley portraits hung in the long gallery, which runs from the head of the staircase, above the inner hall. Part of the C18 garden layout survives, including a gazebo and a Doric rotunda. In the walled garden in a C17 gateway brought from Lemeneagh Castle, which was the principal seat of this branch of the O’Briens until they abandoned it in favour of Dromoland. The Young Irelander leader, William Smith O’Brien, a brother of the 13th Lord Inchiquin, was born in Dromoland in C18 house. Dromolond castle is now a hotel, having been sold 1962 by 16th Lord Inchiquin, who built himself a modern house in the grounds to the design of Mr Donal O’Neill Flanagan; it is in a pleasantly simple Georgian style.”
Donough O’Brien (1642-1717), 1st Baronet by Mary Beale, 1690. He lived in an earlier Dromoland Castle.Lucia Hamilton, 1674, daughter of George Hamilton. Wife of Donough O’Brien, 1st Baronet, married in 1674. She died two years later, not long after the birth of his son and heir, Lucius.Edward O’Brien (1705-1765) 2nd Baronet of Dromoland, County Clare from Historical memoir of the O’Briens : The Origin and History of the O’Brien Clan, by John O’Donoghue A.M, Barrister-at-Law, First Published in 1860 (Martin Breen 2002) Illustrations section (Collection of O’Brien of Dromoland), Public Domain,https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=109837449Mary Hickman, wife of Edward O’Brien, 2nd Baronet, from Historical memoir of the O’Briens : The Origin and History of the O’Brien Clan, by John O’Donoghue A.M, Barrister-at-Law, First Published in 1860 (Martin Breen 2002) Illustrations section, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=109837783
Lucius Henry O’Brien, 3rd Baronet of Dromoland, County Clare (1731-95) also lived in 14 Henrietta St from 1767-1795 – for more about him, see Melanie Hayes, The Best Address in Town: Henrietta Street, Dublin and its First Residents 1720-80, published by Four Courts Press, Dublin 8, 2020.
Dromoland Castle, Co Clare, NLI, Lawrence Photographic Collection photo by Robert French.Edward Donough, 14th Baron of Inchiquin, K.P. by F. Sargeant 1897, courtesy Fonsie Mealy auction 2016.
Mark Bence-Jones writes in A Guide to Irish Country Houses (1988):
p. 121. “(Macnamara/IFR) :A two storey seven bay gable-ended C18 house with a two bay return prolonged by a single-storey C19 wing ending in a gable. One bay pedimented breakfront with fanlighted tripartite doorway; lunette window in pediment. Some interior plasterwork, including a frieze incorporating an arm embowed brandishing a sword – the O’Brien crest – in the hall. Conservatory with art-nouveau metalwork; garden with flights of steps going down to the river. The home of Francis MacNamara, a well-known bohemian character who was the father-in-law of Dylan Thomas and who married, as his second wife, the sister of Augustus John’s Dorelia; he and John are the Two Flamboyant Fathers in the book of that name by his daughter, Nicolette Shephard.”
Ennistymon House (between ca. 1865-1914), County Clare, photograph by Robert French, Lawrence Photograph Collection, National Library of Ireland.
Gregan’s Castle hotel, County Clare, photograph from National Inventory of Architectural Heritage.
The National Inventory tells us Gregan’s Castle was built in 1750. It tells us Gregan’s Castle is a: “six-bay two-storey house, built c. 1750, with half-octagonal lower projection. Extended c. 1840, with single-bay two-storey gabled projecting bay and single-storey flat-roofed projecting bay to front. Seven-bay two-storey wing with single-storey canted bay windows to ground floor, added c. 1990, to accommodate use as hotel.”
The website tells us:
“Welcome to Gregans Castle Hotel. Please take a look around our luxury, eco and gourmet retreat, nestled in the heart of the beautiful Burren on Ireland’s west coast. The house has been welcoming guests since the 1940s and our family have been running it since 1976. Our stunning 18th century manor house is set in its own established and lovingly-attended gardens on the Wild Atlantic Way, and has spectacular views that stretch across the Burren hills to Galway Bay.
“Inside, you’ll find welcoming open fires, candlelight and striking decoration ranging from modern art, to antique furniture, to pretty garden flowers adorning the rooms. Gregans Castle has long been a source of inspiration for its visitors.
“Guests have included J.R.R Tolkien, who’s said to have been influenced by the Burren when writing The Lord of the Rings, as well as other revered artists and writers such as Seamus Heaney and Sean Scully.
“And for the guests of today: with warm Irish hospitality, stylish accommodation, outstanding service and exceptional fine dining in our award-winning restaurant, we truly are a country house of the 21st century. You can do nothing or everything here. And whatever you choose, we’d like you to join us in celebrating all that is wondrous and beautiful in this truly exceptional place.“
Simon Haden and Frederieke McMurray
8. Loop Head Lightkeeper’s Cottage, County Clare€€ for 2; € for 4-6
“Perched proudly on an enclosure at the tip of Loop Head stands the lighthouse station. Surrounded by birds and wild flowers, cliffs and Atlantic surf, Loop Head offers holiday accommodation with all of the spectacular appeal of the rugged west coast.“
9. Mount Callan House and Restaurant, Inagh, Co Clare – B&B
Mark Bence-Jones writes in A Guide to Irish Country Houses (1988):
p. 212. (Synge/IFR; Tottenham/IFR) A Victorian house of two storys over basement built 1873 by Lt Col G.C. Synge and his wife, Georgiana, who was also his first cousin, being the daughter of Lt-Col Charles Synge, the previous owner of the estate. The estate was afterwards inherited by Georgiana Synge’s nephew, Lt-Col F. St. L. Tottenham, who made a garden in which rhododendrons run riot and many rare and tender species flourish.”
The website tells us:
“Mount Callan House & Restaurant is situated in the beautiful surroundings of West Clare in the heart of Kilmaley village. We are a small, family-run restaurant, led by Chef Daniel Lynch, and guest house with a deep connection to our rural community.
“The local landscape is our inspiration and our food is created using the very best seasonal ingredients from award-winning, local suppliers.
“We encourage creativity, a good working environment and a community approach for the benefit of all.“
10. Mount Cashel Lodge, Kilmurry, Sixmilebridge, Co Clare – period self-catering accommodation €
The website describes it: “Enjoy luxury self-catering accommodation in these beautifully restored 18th Century lakeside lodges. Set in a 38 acre private landscaped estate with private Lake, riverside walk and Victorian cottage garden to explore. Lake boating, kayaking and fishing are available on site to complete this idyllic retreat.“
Newpark House, County Clare by Jen on flickr constant commons, 2016.
The website tells us: “Newpark House was built around 1750, and since then it has been the property of three families: the Hickmans, the Mahons and the Barrons.
“The Hickmans came into the possession of Cappahard Estate in 1733. On part of this estate, Gortlevane townland, Richard Hickman built a house and landscaped around it. Around this time he re-named the townland Newpark. Several of those trees from the planting of the new park still survive. On his marriage in 1768 his father transferred the property to Richard. He died in 1810 and this property transferred to his son Edward Shadwell Hickman. Edward was a Crown Solicitor in Dublin and put the property up for rent.
“The Mahons: Patrick Mahon, a member of the new up and coming Catholic gentry, took up this offer and moved his family into Newpark. The Mahon family were very involved in the campaign for equal rights for Catholics in Ireland. Patrick’s son, James Patrick commonly known as The O’Gorman Mahon, nominated Daniel O’Connell to contest the famous Clare Election of 1828. O’Connell’s victory in this election resulted in the granting of Catholic Emancipation in 1829. It is highly likely that Daniel O’Connell stayed at Newpark during his visits to Ennis at this time. O’Gorman Mahon (1802-1891) had a very colourful life which ranged from hunting bears in Finland with a Russian Tzar to becoming a Colonel and Aide-de-Camp to the President of Costa Rica. Back in Ireland he is said to have introduced Parnell to Kitty O’Shea.
“While the Mahon family were living here they totally remodled the house. They added on wings and castlated the house in the Gothic revival style which was fashionable in Ireland at that time. The architect responsible would seem to be either John Nash or one of his former apprentices, the Pain brothers, all three were working in the area at this time.
“Of special historical significance is a pair of crosses on the turrets of the house. These crosses have shamrocks on the ends and were put there to commerate Catholic Emancipation. The Mahon family purchased the estate outright in 1853 and held it until 1904.
“At times when Newpark was owned by the Hickmans and Mahons several other families and individuals lived there. The Ennis poet Thomas Dermody spent time here with his father before he set off from Newpark, in 1785, for Dublin, in search of fame and fortune. Thomas remarked on the comfort he felt at Newpark during his time there. Also to have lived at Newpark were Captain William Cole Hamilton, a Magistrate (1870-1876), William Robert Prickett (1883-1886) and Philip Anthony Dwyer (1888-1904), Captains in the local Clare Division of the British Army.
“The Barrons: In 1904 the property came into ownership of the present family, the Barrons. Timothy ‘Thady’ Barron was born on the side of the road, in 1847, during the famine. His father had lost his herdsman job, along with the herdsman’s cottage, due to a change of landlord. After a few tough years his father got another herdsmans job and Thady followed in his fathers footsteps. Thady moved in to Newpark in 1904 with his family and he lived he until his death in 1945. In the 1950s Thady’s son James ‘Amy’ bought the property from his sister Nance. In 1960 Amy’s son Earnan and his new wife Bernie moved into a barely habitable Newpark House. They set about slowly but surely bringing the house back to live. Luckily for them they got an opportunity to furnish the house with antiques, which were at that time considered second-hand furniture. Bernie opened up Newpark House as a B&B in 1966. Her son, Declan, is the present owner and we are looking forward to 50 years in business in 2016.”“The Barrons: In 1904 the property came into ownership of the present family, the Barrons. Timothy ‘Thady’ Barron was born on the side of the road, in 1847, during the famine. His father had lost his herdsman job, along with the herdsman’s cottage, due to a change of landlord. After a few tough years his father got another herdsmans job and Thady followed in his fathers footsteps. Thady moved in to Newpark in 1904 with his family and he lived he until his death in 1945. In the 1950s Thady’s son James ‘Amy’ bought the property from his sister Nance. In 1960 Amy’s son Earnan and his new wife Bernie moved into a barely habitable Newpark House. They set about slowly but surely bringing the house back to live. Luckily for them they got an opportunity to furnish the house with antiques, which were at that time considered second-hand furniture. Bernie opened up Newpark House as a B&B in 1966. Her son, Declan, is the present owner and we are looking forward to 50 years in business in 2016.”
12. Smithstown Castle (or Ballynagowan), County Clare – tower house € for 4-8 for one week
Ballynagowan Castle County Clare by Neale Adams, 2011 on flickr constant commons.
From the website:
“Only few castles in the West of Ireland have survived into our times. Ballynagowan (Smithstown) Castle has played an exciting role in the history of North Clare, taking its name from ‘beal-atha-an-ghobhan’, meaning the ‘mouth of the smith’s ford’.
“It was first mentioned in 1551 when the last King of Munster, Murrough O’Brien, (also known as the Tanist, was created 1st Earl of Thomond and 1st Baron of Inchiquin in 1543), willed the Castle of Ballynagowan to his son Teige before his death.
Murrough O’Brien (1614-1674) 1st Earl of Inchiquin by John Michael Wright courtesy of Manchester Art Gallery.
“Over the years it accommodated many famous characters of Irish history. Records show that in 1600 the legendary Irish rebel “Red” Hugh O’Donnell rested there with his men during his attack on North Clare, spreading ruin everywhere and seeking revenge on the Earl of Thomond for his being in alliance with the English.
“In 1649 Oliver Cromwell’s army came from England with death and destruction. The Castle was attacked with cannons when Cromwell’s General, Ludlow, swept into North Clare striking terror everywhere he went.
“In 1650 Conor O’Brien of Lemeneagh became heir of the castle. His death, however, came shortly afterwards in 1551, as he was fatally wounded in a skirmish with Cromwellian troops commanded by General Ludlow at Inchicronan. With him had fought his wife Maire Rua O’Brien (“The Red Mary”, named after her long red hair), one of the best known characters in Irish tradition. She had lived in the castle as a young woman and it is the ferocity and cruelty attributed to her, which has kept her name alive. Legends tell that to save her children’s heritage after Conor’s death she married several English generals, who were killed in mysterious ways one after the other- she supposedly ended her bloody carrier entombed in a hollow tree.
“During 1652 almost all inhabitable castles in Clare including Smithstown were occupied by Cromwellian garrisons, a time of terrible uncertainty as Clare was under military rule.
“Over the next decades Ballynagowan Castle was the seat of army generals, the High Sheriff of County Clare and Viscount Powerscourt, one of the most powerful aristocrats who had their main residence – a monumental neogothic palace – in Dublin.
“The castle was last inhabited mid 19th century and until its recent restauration served as beloved meeting point for couples -, songs and poems about it finding their way into the local pubs.“
13. Strasburgh Manor coach houses, Inch, Ennis, County Clare€
“The buildings that comprise the holiday homes were the coach houses attached to the House.
“Once occupied by James Burke, who was killed in the French Revolution in 1790, the House was named after the French town of Strasbourg.
“It figured prominently in Irish history up to its demise in 1921, when it was burned down during the Irish War of Independence.
“Families associated with it included: Burke, Daxon, Stacpoole, Huxley, Mahon, Talbot, Taylor, Scott & McGann (ref: ‘Houses of Clare’ by Hugh Weir, published by Ballinakella Press, Whitegate, Co. Clare).“
Whole House Rental, County Clare
1. Inchiquin House, Corofin, County Clare – whole house rental,€€€ for 2, € for 6-10
Inchiquin House, County Clare by Conall, 2021 on flickr constant commons.
The website tells us “Inchiquin House is an elegant period home in County Clare, romantically tucked away in the west of Ireland not far from the Wild Atlantic Way. It is the perfect base from which to explore the unique Burren landscape, historic sites, and the region’s many leisure activities.“
2. Mount Vernon lodge, Co Clare – whole house accommodation€ for 7-11 people
“Mount Vernon is a lovely Georgian Villa built in 1788 on the Burren coastline of County Clare with fine views over Galway Bay and the surrounding area.
“Built in 1788 for Colonel William Persse on his return from the American War of Independence, Mount Vernon was named to celebrate his friendship with George Washington. The three remaining cypress trees in the walled garden are thought to have been a gift from the President.
“During the nineteenth century Mount Vernon was the summer home of Lady Augusta Gregory of Coole, an accomplished playwright and folklorist and a pivotal figure in the Irish Cultural Renaissance. It was her collaboration with W.B.Yeats and Edward Martyn that created the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1904. Lady Gregory entertained many of the luminaries of the Irish Literary Revival at Mount Vernon including W.B.Yeats, AE (George Russell), O’Casey, Synge and George Bernard Shaw.
“In 1907 Lady Gregory gave the house to her son Robert Gregory as a wedding present and it was from here that he produced many of his fine paintings of the Burren landscape. He later joined the Royal Flying Corps and was shot down by ‘friendly fire’ in 1918, an event commemorated by W.B.Yeats in his famous poem, An Irish Airman Foresees his Death.
“A feature from this period are the unusual fireplaces designed and built by his close friend the pre-Raphaelite painter Augustus John.“
[2] p. 49. 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.
[7] Craig, Maurice and Knight of Glin [Desmond Fitzgerald] Ireland Observed. A handbook to the Buildings and Antiquities. The Mercier Press, Dublin and Cork, 1970.
[8] p. 103. Craig, Maurice. The Architecture of Ireland from the Earliest Times to 1880, Lambay Books, Portrane, County Dublin, first published 1982, this edition 1997, p. 103.
Happy new year and best wishes for 2023 to all my readers!
As you may recall if you are a regular visitor, the updated Revenue Section 482 list for the year is not normally published until February. So if you are making some visits to properties in January I recommend using the 2022 list and contacting a property in advance to see if it is open.
I still have to write up many properties that I have visited – all properties from Heritage week onwards. I took a hiatus to work on my calendars for 2023. I am now working on a calendar that will publish the opening dates of all of the properties for 2023, which I will publish once the 2023 Revenue Section 482 list is published.
Each property opens on different dates, so planning routes around the country to visit when neighbouring properties are open takes some work! To help you to plan, I am listing for each date which properties are open on that date. I am listing properties by number, as it would take too much space to list every property open on every day, considering that there were 187 properties in 2022. To make it easier, I am colour-coding the properties by province, so that one can scan and see where neighbouring properties are open.
Each year I try to visit as many properties as possible, taking holidays for the most far-flung counties from Dublin, and during Heritage Week, going on a tour of as many properties as possible all over the country, as all the properties are open on those dates (unless they are listed as Accommodation, in which case, they do not have to be open during Heritage Week).
I will be publishing photographs of properties in the calendar, to create a book. Here is a sample of how the calendar will look:
I hope that some of my readers would like to purchase my calendars! It will give you a go-to hard copy for planning your visits to historic houses in Ireland, full of photographs of places to be discovered. (I will publish details as to how to order a copy, and the price, once the dates have been finalised).
I have made some diaries for 2023, and ordered a few extra ones to sell if anyone is interested. It’s a 14.9 x 21.3 cm date book, €18 each, with a page per week, all with Section 482 houses pictured.
Let me know if you would like one – I can post it to you or meet up with you!
As 2022 is entering its final dark days, I thought I’d look over our last few years, to see how we are doing on the project of visiting Section 482 properties. I began the project in April 2019 with a visit to Slane Castle, in County Meath. That was an impressive start to our project.
I gathered notes on properties I had already visited, during Open House or Heritage weeks in previous years. As you can see, my interest in historic houses predated my discovery of the Section 482 scheme. In fact, in a PhD I started but never finished, about aesthetic experience, I began my thesis by attempting to capture a moment of aesthetic experience: that of looking at a historic house. It’s lovely to see how I was already trying to understand what it is that draws me to such places.
We’ve visited 87 of the properties so far!
Properties we’d visited before I learned of the Section 482 list include:
Loughcrew, County Meath, May 2010 – our combined Hen and Stag weekend, before Stephen and I married!
I’d like to choose a House of the Year for each year. I should have started in my first year! In 2019 the competition is stiff and it seems a little unfair as my favourite dwarfs the others in size as well as in impressive interior: I have to choose Curraghmore, County Waterford, as my 2019 House of the Year! Although considering that we also visited Birr Castle, Dunsany and Borris House that year, it was a year full of wonderful discoveries. Lady Dunsany, who sadly passed away since, deserves a special mention as a warm, welcoming and delightful host.
In 2019 we set off at an ambitious pace, visiting a house nearly every weekend! We went on holidays to Waterford to see some of the lovely houses, and coincided with the day of lectures in Dromana on the topic of “The Pursuit of the Heiress.” In 2019 we visited:
In 2020, during Covid restrictions and even after, houses did not have to open to the public. However, some owners were kind and opened to us. We went on holiday down to County Cork during Heritage Week, and at the end of the year treated ourselves to two nights in Cabra Castle in County Cavan. My choice of Favourite House in 2020 is Ian Elliot’s Corravahan in County Cavan. Ian’s research deepened my appreciation of the house and its history. In 2020 we visited:
The Odeon, Dublin, 13th April 2020 (outside – we may have been in a lockdown at that point!)
Corravahan, County Cavan, 24th July 2020: My chosen Home of the Year in 2020.
Former Rectory Corravahan, County Cavan, home of the Beresfords.Owner Ian Elliot has taken great interest in the history of the house and the house is full of quirks.
In 2021 the house that really blew my socks off and has to be given my Favourite Home of the Year award is Stradbally in County Laois. Again in 2021 houses did not have to be open if owners were concerned about the spread of Covid-19. We managed to visit quite a few, however, and were able to go on holidays during Heritage week, when we travelled to Sligo and Mayo and back home through County Kilkenny. Special award goes to our lovely hosts Nicola and Durcan at Annaghmore, County Sligo, where we stayed during our visits in Mayo and Sligo. Special mention also goes to Wilton Castle in County Wexford, whose owners have done a tremendous job in renovations after it lay a roofless ruin for years. In 2021 we visited:
And this year, in 2022, we went on holiday in June to County Cork to visit some historic houses. Then we did another tour of the country during Heritage Week. My favourite, to be awarded House of the Year 2022, is Bantry House, although special mention must go to St. Mary’s Abbey House in Trim, which is a real gem. During 2022 we visited:
Irish Historic Houses 