Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 17. “(Power/IFR) A gable-ended late C17 or early 18C house of 2 storeys with a dormered attic, incorporating an old tower-house which is not visible from the outside. Five bay front, made irregular ca 1770 by the insertion of two much larger windows in the upper storey at one end, lighting the first floor drawing room which was formed at that time. Porch with two Tuscan columns and pediment. Lower two storey one bay wing. Slightly curving C18 wooden staricase going up to the top of the house, and lit by small fanlighted windows. Spacious first floor landing with shouldered doorcases. On one side of the landing is a room in the old tower, which has a recently uncovered stone fireplace, as well as a small C18 chimneypiece of black marble. On the other side is the drawing room, which has a magnificent plasterwork ceiling of ca. 1770, with foliage and husk ornament in compartments, and a cornice of flowers. The room also has particularly fine C18 joinery; a dado, a shouldered doorcase and shouldered and scrolled architraves around the windows, which are on three sides, those at one end commanding a spectacular view of Waterford Harbour. Originally the seat of the Dobbin family, sold 1778 to Nicholas Power, whose son, Nicholas Mahon-Power, ceased to occupy it when he acquired the nearby Faithlegg House 1819. It was subsequently acquired by another branch of the Dobbins, from whom it was inherited by Mrs. Patricia Gossip. Mrs Gossip and her son, George Gossip, have, over the past few years, been carrying out a thorough and sympathetic restoration of the house. The drawing room ceilng, part of which had fallen, was restored by Mr William Garner under the auspices of the Irish Georgian Society 1970.”
Ballinakill House, County Waterford, photograph courtesy of National Inventory.
Detached three-bay two-storey over basement house with half-dormer attic, c.1750, incorporating fabric of medieval tower house, c.1550, retaining early fenestration with single-bay single-storey pedimented advanced Doric porch to ground floor. Extended, c.1775, comprising two-bay two-storey end bay with dormer attic to right (east). Renovated and extended, c.1850, comprising single-bay two-storey end bay to left (west). Renovated, c.1975, with half-dormer attic remodelled. Pitched slate roof (gabled to half-dormer attic windows; hipped to end bay to left (west)) with clay ridge tiles, rendered chimney stacks, timber eaves to half-dormer attic windows, and cast-iron rainwater goods on rendered eaves. Unpainted rendered walls. Square-headed window openings with stone sills. 6/6 timber sash windows, and 1/1 timber sas sash windows having margins. Timber casement windows, c.1975, to half-dormer attic. Square-headed door opening under cut-stone pedimented Doric porch on two cut-stone steps with timber panelled door. Interior with timber panelled shutters to window openings. Set back from road in own grounds with gravel forecourt, landscaped grounds to site, and random rubble stone boundary wall to perimeter.
An important house of many periods, the earliest of which is reputed to be a medieval tower house, and the evolution of which is clearly expressed on the exterior through the random arrangement of openings of various proportions. Subsequently well maintained, the house presents an almost entirely intact early aspect – however, the remodelled openings to the half-dormer attic do not enhance the visual appeal of the composition.
By Joe Falvey. Published on Friday, August 18th, 2006 at 12:00 pm
The item I did two weeks ago on the “Big Houses” along the Dunmore Road proved very popular to judge by the response and hits on the web-site. I had a more detailed history of some like Waterford Castle, Glenville House, Elva/Ardkeen House, while with some others I just had their care of construction, others again I had no date – of which I would like to learn more. Why not contact me at joefalvey@eircom.net if any of you readers can add to our pool of knowledge? The Ardkeen library site: www. Ardkeen.ie is also an invaluable resource on all matters local. In my review of these houses I meant to include the information I came across on Ballinakill House which I discovered there, so here goes.
Ballinakill House
Ballinakill was occupied by the Normans and in 1210 King John, on his trip to Ireland, is said to have stopped at the “land of the Thomas Fitzanthony” at Ballinakill (or Ballymackylle). After the Norman Invasion the powerful Dobbyn (or Dobbin) family settled in Waterford.
Ballinakill House, which overlooks the river Suir, Little Island, became the seat of the Dobbyn family until it was sold in 1788 to Nicholas Power whose son, Nicholas Mahon-Power, lived in Ballinakill until he acquired the nearby Faithlegg House in 1819. The house was bought by another branch of the Dobbyns and was inherited by Mrs. Patrica Gossip. I was acquainted with three of her sons, John, George and Randal and daughter Priscilla (who sadly died as a young mother). George ran a restaurant at the house for a couple of years. The house was eventually sold a few years later and remains a private residence.
Ballinakill is a two storey late 17th or early 18th century house and incorporated an old tower house not visible from the outside – the house has spectacular views of the Waterford Harbour. It is described in Egan’s 1894 Directory as “close to the Water’s edge rising as if from the rock, its quaint appearance enshrouded in trees denoting a romantic home”
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
[Rockfleet, but see Rossyvera entry] p. 243. “A two storey late-Georgian house on an inlet of Clew Bay close to an old castle of the celebrated C16 chieftain, Graunuaile or Grace O’Malley; enlarged and remodelled from 1939 onwards by the British diplomat, Sir Owen O’Malley, and Lady O’Malley (better known as the writer and traveller, Ann Bridge). An extra storey, with a flat roof, was added to the house; and a new two bay block built to the right of the original three bay front and projecting forwards from it. The new additions are of random ashlar with the joints raked out and well pointed to resist the weather; the windows are small Georgian sashes. The whole effect is that an old castle enlarged and modernised in C18. The principal rooms are arranged round an oval staircase hall, which is original to the house but was raised and surmounted by a lantern when the extra storey was added. One of the rooms is an octagon. The library bookcases and some of the chimneypieces are of macacauba, a Portuguese colonial timber, which Sir Owen, who was Ambassador in Lisbon, sent to Ireland in the form of containers for his furniture.”
Rockfleet Castle or Carraigahowley Castle (Carraig-an-Cabhlaigh), County Mayo, courtesy Archiseek.
Rockfleet Castle or Carraigahowley Castle (Carraig-an-Cabhlaigh), is a tower house near Newport. It was built in the mid 16th century, and is most famously associated with the legendary Grainne ni Mhaille, Grace O’Malley, the pirate queen and chieftain of the clan O’Malley, who lived here after she married Sir Richard Burke (Richard the Iron) in 1566.
The castle has four storeys with a small rectangular corner turret rising above the parapet. The principal apartment was in the top floor where there is a fireplace. After the last war the building was restored by the diplomat Sir Owen O’Malley, a direct descendant of Grace, who lived in the nearby late Georgian house.
Rockfleet Castle or Carraigahowley Castle (Carraig-an-Cabhlaigh), County Mayo, courtesy Tourism Ireland, Photo by Artur Ilkow, 2016. Rockfleet Castle or Carraigahowley Castle (Carraig-an-Cabhlaigh), County Mayo, courtesy Tourism Ireland, Photo by Pawel Sadowski, 2016.
entry in MacDonnell, Randal. The Lost Houses of Ireland. A chronicle of great houses and the families who lived in them. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. London, 2002
p. 177 “A late 18th century house with 19th and 20th century additions. Rockfleet stands near the shore of Clew Bay. It had been home to the only woman alleged to have held the position of an Irish Chief, as well as two distinguished diplomatists and their families.”
p. 178. Carrigahowley is a small, 16th century tower house on the shore of Clew Bay, four storeys high with box machicolations (projecting galleries) on two opposing corners of the parapet. There are very few windows, but there are a number of narrow loops. Carrigahowley, or “Rock of the Fleet of Ships”, is the only residence that can be connected with certainty to Grace O’Malley…unfortunately, most of the tales that concern her are based more on fiction than fact. The house known as Rockfleet stands near the tower house.”
p. 179. “Grace was born between 1530-1540, the daughter of Eoghan Dubhdara (‘black oak’) O’Malley, the Lord of Upper Umhall, or the barony of Murrisk. Her father’s people were described as sea gods of the western ocean by the inhabitants of Mayo. To everybody else they were known as dangerous pirates. As a child, Grace accompanied her father on his marauding expeditions, and on his death she took over the leadership of the Murrisk O’Malley clan, since her brother was still a child. This was an extraordinary achievement for, despite its logic, it was completely contrary to the Brehon laws of succession in Gaelic Ireland.
In about 1546, Grace married Donal ‘of the strife’ the son of Giolla Dubh O’Flaherty, the Lord of Iar Chonnacht and Connemara. This marriage lasted for about 15 years – the Joyces (the descendants of Cambro-Normans, who controlled a large part of Co Galway, butchered him before 1561. Grace then married Sir Richard Fitz-David Bourke, The MacWilliam Uachtar, who was known in Irish as ‘Richard of the Iron’ or “Iron Dick’). Thanks to this match, she became Lady Bourke. Her eldest son by Iron Dick, Theobald of the Shops, would become the 1st Viscount Mayo.
Grace now turned to open piracy, which she called her ‘trade of maintenance.’ An old manuscript described her as ‘a great pirate and plunderer from her youth.’ She was finally proclaimed an outlaw and a reward of £500 was offered for the capture of ‘Grany O’Mayle, a woman that hath impudently passed the part of womanhood, and been a great spoiler and chief commander and director of thieves and murtherers at sea.” An attempt to capture her at Carrigahowly Castle failed after a siege that lasted a fortnight.
Another tale has it that Grace acquired the castle by marrying her second husband Richard Bourke on a trial basis for a year. At the end of which, having filled the place with her own people and got herself an heir, she dismissed him.
“In 1576, Grace approached the Lord Deputy, Sir Henry Sidney, in an attempt at a rapprochement with Dublin Castle, but he rejected her overturnes and wrote that ‘she brought with her, her husband; for she was, as well by sea and by land, more than master-mate with him.” The unfortunate Sir Richard Burke died in 1538, leaving Grace a widow for the second time. She now decided to cast her net wider than before and led a raiding party against the Geraldines in Co Kerry. It was a disasterous undertaking. Cpatured by the Earl of Desmond and imprisoned for 18 months, no sooner was she released than she took to piracy once again. Her conduct led Sir Richard Bingham to write that she was a ‘notable traitress and nurse to all the rebellions in Connacht for forty years.’ Her son, Murrough O’Flaherty, had made submission to the Crown and was never forgiven by his mother. Bingham recalled that ‘she fell out of charity with Murrough, and having manned her navy of galleys, she landed at Ballynahinch, where he dwelt, burnt the town, destroyed his people’s cattle and goods, and killed three or four of his men who resisted.’
Then she retired to Carrigahowley with ‘all her own followers and one thousand head of cows and mares.’ Grace did not take sides in the political conflicts of the age in which she lived. All were considered as fair game. Consequently, in 1558, when those ships that had escaped from the disasterous defeat of the Spanish Armada sailed into Clew Bay, she made short work of them, and their crews were summarily dealt with, an action which won the approbation of Queen Elizabeth. Seeing her opportunity, Grace decided that now was the time to make her [p. 180] submission to the queen but, being Grace O’Malley, she did not submit to elizabeth’s representative but went in person to the court of London in 1593. However, despite the stories, there is no evidence that Grace actually ever met the queen. When she was in London, she petitioned for the release of her sons, which was granted, and asked for her entitlement from her husband’s lands, but this was refused. The Queen did, however, instruct Bingham to give her ‘some maintenance for her lving the rest of her old years.’
There is a famous tale that on her way back from the Queen, Grace was refused hospitality by Lord Howth. In revenge, she seized his infant son, taking him back to Mayo with her and only returning him after she was given a promise that a place would be laid at Howth Castle from that day forwards for the O’Malleys – just in case a member of that family might happen to be passing and in need of refreshment. There are serious flaws in this account of events. For one thing, the Lord Howth in the 1590s had no infant son to be kidnapped by anyone. But the legend is so well known (and a place is still laid at Howth Castle) that it is not impossible she might have kidnapped some member of Lord Howth’s family.”
“Interestingly, a similar legend concerns Ricard O Cuairsge Bourke, Lord of the mac Williams from 1469 until 1479 (and a collateral ancestor of Grace’s late husband). This version has it that it was this Richard Bourke who seized Lord Howth and, as part of his ransom, insisted that the head of the St. Lawrence family should always ‘keep the door of his Court open at dinner time.’ Perhaps the facts and the legend have become so mixed that it will never be possible to know the truth of the story.
Grace made a second trip to London in 1595 and died at some date after 1601 for, in that year, one of her galleys was captured with 100 musketeers on board by an English ship. She is allegedly buried on Clare Island in Clew Bay.
Rossyvera House, or Rockfleet [see Rossyvera entry], is near to the tower house of Carrigahowley. It has been suggested that it was originally a dower-house for the O’Donel family, who lived at Newport House (Newport is a small village, ten miles west of Castlebar in the northeast corner of Clew Bay). [p. 181] However, there is an account that it was built ‘as a nice neat house’ by a family by the name of Arbuthnot.
“In the 19th century the house came into the possession of the Stoney family. They had come from England in the 17th century and in the 19th century James Stoney (1814-1897), a Justice of the Peace, is known to have lived at Rossy-Vera (as it was spelt). His family cannot have owned the house after his time because James’s elder son, Thomas, resided at Oakfield Park, near Raphoe in County Donegal.
“The next name that is associated with Rossyvera is that of Sir Owen St. Clair O’Malley. Sir Owen described himself as ‘an autochthonous Irishman’ and was one fo the O’Malleys of Belclare. This branch of the family lived at Hawthorn Lodge (or Tallyho as it was originally named), near Castlebar in Co Mayo. One of this family was created a Count of the Holy Roman Empire and another, Loughlin O’Malley, conformed to the Established Church in 1718. His great-grandson, Peter O’Malley, QC, moved to England in the mid 19th century and became the Recorder of Norwich. His son, Sir Edward, was variously Attorney General of Jamaica and Hong Kong and eventually Chief Judge of H.M. Supreme Consular Court for the Ottoman Empire. Sir Owen O’Malley was Sir Edward’s son. He entered the diplomatic service in 1911 and the next year married Mary Saunders. …
On Sir Owen’s retirement, he and Lady O’Malley began remodelling and enlarging Rossyvera – it is recorded that Sir Owen built the additions with his own hands. They added a two-bay wing to the original three bay house, an extra storey with a flat roof, as well as a cupola on the top of the staircase hall. There is an elliptical hall and a spiral staircase, the three original reception rooms are now four – one of which is an octagon shape – and there are nine bedrooms. The library bookcases and the dining room chimneypiece are made out of macacauba wood, an exotic oriental timber used by Sir Owen to make cases for his possessions when he moved from Portugal to Ireland. [182] with view to reusing the timber, he instructed his packers to employ screws rather than nails when fastening the timber.
In the 1950s Sir Owen O’Malley and the O’Malley clan Association restored Carrigahowley Cstle (which had been used, at one period, by a family called Flynn for storing hay) and it is now a National Monument. He wrote a history of the O’Malley lordship in the 16th century in The Galway Archaological and Historical Journal (1950).
Sir Owen sold Rockfleet (the name is a contraction of the anglicization of Carrigahowley) in 1955, and moved to Oxford, where he died in 1974, a month after his wife. The new owner of the house was Carmel Snow, the editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, and the doyenne of fashion writers during the 1930s and 40s… she restored its original name of Rossyvera.
In 1957, Rossyvera was bought by Walter P. Curley and his wife, Mary. After a successful career in venture capital, Walter Curley served as Ambassador of the US to Ireladn from 1975-1977 and later, from 1989-1993 as Ambassador to France. .. He and hisw wife now live at Rossyvera for several months a year.”
An O’Malley castle, owned by the Arbuthnots at the end of the 18th century. By the time of Griffith’s Valuation, the townland was in the possession of William B. Stony, leasing from Captain A.W. Wyndham. The castle ruin is still extant.
Irish Castles and Historic Houses. ed. by Brendan O’Neill, intro. by James Stevens Curl. Caxton Editions, London. 2002:
This relatively small tower-house was the principle residence of the great Pirate Queen, Grace o”malley, whose powers were undisputed in the 16th century.
Rockfleet Castle also known as Carrickahowley Castle, stands in a small inlet on the northern shores of Clew Bay in County Mayo. The Castle is renowned for its links with Grace O`Malley, a pirate sea Queen who inhabited the castle in the latter part of the 16th Century. The castle is four floors high with a small rectangular corner turret rising above the parapet. The principal apartment was in the top floor where there is a fireplace. The building was restored by the diplomat Sir Owen O’Malley, a direct descendant of Grace O’Malley. The castle is signposted (as Carrickahowley) just off the N59 between Newport and Mulranny.
Rockfleet or Carrigahowley Castle is a fine 15th- or 16th-century tower house situated beside an inlet of Clew Bay. It is four storeys high with two corner bartizans. There is a fireplace at the top floor.
It is known to be the principal residence of Grace O’Malley, or Grainneuaile, the famous sea-pirate. In 1574 she beat off an attack by sea-borne English from Galway. She lived at Rockfleet after the death of her second husband, Sir Richard Burke, in 1583. In 1593 she appeared before Elizabeth I and was granted a licence to attack the Queen’s enemies.
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 14. A C16 tower-house with a hall wing attached. Part Gothic, part Renaissance fireplace.
The name Athclare derives from the Irish Áth Cláir, meaning Ford on level land, and here in County Louth stands a mid-16th century tower house originally built for the Barnewell family, who were then prominent landowners in this part of the country. The building is of four storeys and, as was usual for such structures, has just an arched entrance on the ground floor, the sole point of access. A stone spiral staircase in the south-east corner leads to the upper levels, with a large hall on the first floor. Here can be found an enormous limestone chimneypiece, the border of which is decorated with fantastical animals amid trailing floral garlands.
Athclare Castle subsequently passed into the possession of the Taafe family who may have added the substantial wing to the east of the original building. The house was then acquired by London merchant Erasmus Smith who supplied provisions to Oliver Cromwell’s army and used the funds received to buy various parcels of land until eventually he owned over 46,000 acres. On his death, he left a trust arising from ‘the great and ardent desire which he hath that the children inhabiting upon any part of his lands in Ireland should be brought up in the fear of God and good literature and to speak the English tongue.’ The Erasmus Smith Trust went on to establish five grammar schools in Dublin, Tipperary, Ennis, Galway and Drogheda.
Detached multiple-bay three-storey tower house, built c. 1550, extended c. 1650. Rectangular-plan, tower to east. Pitched slate roof, clay ridge tiles, red brick corbelled chimneystack, c.1970, half-round gutters on corbelled eaves course, circular cast-iron downpipes; corbelled stone parapet to tower. Random rubble stone walling, stone quoins, stone string course to parapet. Pointed arch, square-headed window openings, some uPVC windows; arrow loops to north, south and east including decorative arrow loop to first floor south elevation, stone surrounds. Pointed arch door opening to south, dressed limestone voussoirs, steel gate; square-headed door openings to north, smooth rendered surrounds, uPVC and timber and glazed doors,. Two-storey house directly abuts castle to west. Single- and two-storey outbuildings to north forming courtyard c. 1840; hipped and pitched slate roofs, random rubble stone walling, segmental-headed window openings, red brick surrounds, painted timber casements; segmental- and square-headed door openings, red brick surrounds, painted timber vertically timber sheeted doors and metal roller shutters.
Athclare Castle is typical of defensive residential architecture of the period. This sixteenth-century tower house was built by the Barnewell family and later extended in the seventeenth century, the plain extension is distinguished by the stocky tower to the east. It continues to be partially in residential use and the later stable yard to the north indicates that the site has been adapted over the centuries to accommodate those living in the castle. The decorative carving to some of the small window openings is worthy of particular note and Athclare Castle is a site of importance to the heritage of County Louth.
Casey, Christine and Alistair Rowan. The Buildings of Ireland: North Leinster. Penguin Books, London, 1993.
p. 277. “Stocky four-storey tower house built in the C16 by the Barnewall family, with an adjoining C17 wing, tall and gabled. A plain building, whose only ornament is its limestone corner quoins, in striking contrast to the fine cutstone detail at nearby Roodstown (See Stabannan). In the tower house the external stone entrance to the north probably replaces an original entrance on the east side. The spiral stair was located in the SE angle, with garderobe chambers in the SW. Inside, crisp cutstone doors survive, corbels, original timber beams and the piece de resistance, a large limestone chimneypiece with a pretty border of small flowers set in a hollow moulding and some tree vine-leaf decoration on the base.”
Irish Historic Houses 