Ballyheigue Castle, Co Kerry – ruin
https://www.ballyheiguecastlegolfclub.com
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.
p. 22. “(Crosbie/IFR) The original house of the Crosbies here was long, low and thatched, facing onto an enclosed bawn or countyard, in the corner of which was a strong stone tower, part of an old castle of the De Cantillons. It was in this tower that, in 1730, Thomas Crosbie placed the chests of silver which he had rescued from the Danish East Indian Golden Lyon when that vessel was lured into Ballyheigue Bay by wreckers and wrecked; his exertions in saving the treasure and the crew of the ship proved too much for him, and he died from exposure and fatigue. Some months later the castle was attacked by rapparees and the treasure carried off; it was alleged that the attack was organised by Thomas Crosbie’s widow, who subsequently obtained the bulk of the treasure. A new house appears to have been built ca 1758, which Col James Crobie turned into a romantic castle ca 1809. His architects were Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison, the design being produced by the latter though he was only 15 at the time. Like other Gothic and Tudor-Revival houses by the Morrisons, it was intended to represent a building dating from two different periods: the entrance front, in the words of Neale, “exhibiting the rich and ornamental style of teh early part of the reign of Henry VIII”; whereas the elevation towards the sea had “the character and appearance of the castellated mansions of King Henry VI.” In fact, the seaward elevation betrays itself very much as a two storey Georgian house which has been battlemented and had round and square towers and other pseudo-medieval features added to it; while the adjoining entrance front is a not very inspired gabled affair. And whereas Neale’s well-known view shows the castle dramatically situated at the edge of a sheer cliff above the sea, it stands less spectacularly at teh top of a gently sloping lawn, quite some way from the water’s edge. A castellated outbuilding is joined to the castle by a long wall. Peirce Crosbie, the son of Co James Crosbie, had trouble with his wife, who eloped to the Continent with a groom – having previously bestowed her favours on stable-lads – and was never heard of again. The castle was burnt 1921 and is now a ruin.”
Listed in Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland by The Knight of Glin, David J. Griffin and Nicholas K. Robinson, published by The Irish Architectural Archive and The Irish Georgian Society, 1988.
p. 81. “A large Tudor Revival house designed by Richard and William Vitruvius Morrison for James Crosbie c. 1809, incorporating an earlier house. The house was burnt in 1921 and one wing was recently restored.”
Remains of detached two- and three-storey Tudor Gothic Revival style country house, built 1809, incorporating fabric of earlier house, 1758. Comprising six-bay two-storey side (south) elevation of entrance block with battlemented parapet, single-bay three-storey battlemented corner turrets on circular plans and nine-bay two-storey lower wing (originally return) to west having battlemented parapet and corner machicolation. Burnt, in 1840, later used as prison, burnt, in 1921 and now mostly collapsed. Wing reconstructed and remodelled, c. 1975, to accommodate use as apartments with remainder of building now ruinous. Castellated parapets with one cast-iron hopper having floral motif. Snecked sandstone walls with grey limestone string courses and plinth, castellated machicolations, blind arrow loops and having render to parts of side wall with imitation ashlar. Square-headed openings with limestone sills, surrounds, hood mouldings and having sandstone relieving arches. Timber window frames in side openings. Four-centred arch to doorway in double-height arch having window above with carved spandrels. Detached nine-bay two-storey Tudor Gothic Revival style former stable complex, built c. 1810, to east on an L-shaped plan about a courtyard with battlemented parapet, with single-bay two-storey corner turret on a circular plan and three-bay side elevations. Extensively renovated in latter part of twentieth century with pair of single-bay single-storey gabled projecting porches added to accommodate use as apartments. Detached six-bay single-storey rubble stone-built outbuilding, built c. 1810, to east on an L-shaped plan with series of elliptical-headed integral carriage arches, now disused. Section of rubble stone boundary wall to east with series of arrow loops possibly originally part of walled garden.
Gateway to Ballyheige Castle, built c. 1830, comprising pair of single-bay two-storey lodge towers with cross apertures and battlemented parapets having elliptical-headed carriage arch to centre and single-bay single-storey flat-roofed end bay to south with battlemented parapet. Lodge to north now disused. Castellated parapet walls with sandstone copings. Sandstone ashlar facing to front and rear facades with rubble stone side walls and blind arrow loops. Pointed sandstone arches with limestone profiled sills and replacement windows. Three-centred recessed carriage arch.
https://archiseek.com/2012/1812-ballyheigue-castle-co-kerry/
1812 – Ballyheigue Castle, Co. Kerry
Architect: Richard Morrison & William Vitruvius Morrison
Long rambling castle sited across a hillside. Burnt during 1921, a wing was recently restored. The grounds are now a golf course. Interestingly while both illustrations are a reasonable representation of the castle, both exaggerate the landscape. In reality the castle is sited on top of a rolling hillside.
http://lordbelmontinnorthernireland.blogspot.com/2018/08/ballyheigue-castle.html
THE CROSBIES WERE MAJOR LANDOWNERS IN COUNTY KERRY, WITH13,422 ACRES
This is a branch of the CROSBIES OF ARDFERT, extinct Earls of Glandore, themselves scions of a family long settled in the Queen’s County and in County Kerry, and latterly represented by the Crosbie Baronets, of Maryborough.
The common ancestor of the Baronet’s family and the two branches of Ardfert and Ballyheigue was
THE RT REV JOHN CROSBIE, Lord Bishop of Ardfert, appointed to that See in 1601.
The Queen’s letter to the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Lord Mountjoy, dated from the manor of Oatland, in 1600, directing his appointment, describes him as “a graduate in schools, of English race, skilled in the English tongue, and well disposed in religion.”
The Bishop was previously Prebendary of Disert, in the Diocese of Limerick.
He married Winifred O’Lalor, of the Queen’s County, and had, with four daughters, six sons,
Walter (Sir), 1st Baronet, of Maryborough;
DAVID, of whom presently;
John (Sir), of Tullyglass, County Down;
Patrick;
William;
Richard.
The Lord Bishop of Ardfert died in 1621.
His second son,
DAVID CROSBIE, of Ardfert, Colonel in the army, Governor of Kerry, 1641, stood a siege in Ballingarry Castle for more than twelve months.
He was afterwards Governor of Kinsale for CHARLES I; and in 1646 he inherited a portion of the estate of his cousin, Sir Pierce Crosbie Bt, son of Patrick Crosbie, who had been granted a large portion of The O’More’s estate in Leix.
Mr Crosbie wedded a daughter of the Rt Rev John Steere, Lord Bishop of Ardfert, and had, with four daughters, two sons,
THOMAS, his heir;
Patrick.
Colonel Crosbie died in 1658, and was succeeded by his elder son,
SIR THOMAS CROSBIE, Knight, of Ardfert, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1668, knighted by His Grace the Duke of Ormonde, in consideration of the loyalty of his family during Oliver Cromwell’s rebellion.
He was MP for County Kerry in the parliament held in Dublin by JAMES II in 1688, and refused to take the oath of allegiance to WILLIAM III.
Sir Thomas married firstly, Bridget, daughter of Robert Tynte, of County Cork, and had issue,
DAVID, ancestor of THE EARLS OF GLANDORE;
William;
Patrick (Rev);
Walter;
Sarah; Bridget.
He wedded secondly, Elizabeth, daughter of Garrett FitzGerald, of Ballynard, County Limerick, by whom he had no issue; and thirdly, in 1680, Elizabeth, daughter of William Hamilton, of Liscloony, King’s County, and had issue,
THOMAS, of whom hereafter;
John;
Charles;
Pierce;
Ann.
By a very peculiar, probably unique, settlement, executed on the marriages of Sir Thomas Crosbie and his eldest son respectively, to the two sisters, on the same day (1680), a new settlement and redistribution of all the family estates was made, by which those of Ballyheigue were appointed to the issue of the last marriage.
Under this settlement Ballyheigue passed to the eldest son of his third marriage,
THOMAS CROSBIE, of Ballyheigue, MP for County Kerry, 1709, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1712 and 1714, who espoused, in 1711, the Lady Margaret Barry, daughter of Richard, 2nd Earl of Barrymore, and had issue,
JAMES, his heir;
Anne Dorothy; Harriet Jane.
Mr Crosbie died in 1731, and was succeeded by his son and heir,
JAMES CROSBIE, of Ballyheigue, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1751, who married Mary, daughter of Pierce Crosbie, of Rusheen, and had issue,
PIERCE, his heir;
James;
Catherine; Henrietta.
Mr Crosbie died in 1761, and was succeeded by his eldest son,
PIERCE CROSBIE, of Ballyheigue, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1797, who wedded Frances, daughter of Rowland Bateman, of Oak Park, and had issue,
JAMES, his heir;
Pierse;
Elizabeth; Frances Anne.
The elder son,
JAMES CROSBIE (c1760-1836) of Ballyheigue, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1792, MP for County Kerry, 1797-1800, espoused, in 1785, his cousin Elizabeth, daughter of Rowland Bateman, of Oak Park, and had issue,
PIERCE, his heir;
James;
Francis;
Thomas;
Letitia; Frances.
Colonel Crosbie died in 1836, and was succeeded by his eldest son,
PIERCE CROSBIE (1792-1849), of Ballyheigue, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1815, who espoused firstly, Elizabeth, daughter of General John Mitchell. She dsp.
He married secondly, in 1831, Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas William Sandes DL, of Sallow Glen, County Kerry, and had issue,
JAMES, his heir;
Margaret Catherine.
Mr Crosbie wedded thirdly, Margaret, daughter of Leslie Wren, and had further issue,
William Wren;
Pierce;
Leslie Wren;
George Wren;
Francis;
Elizabeth Margaret; Alice Julia.
Mr Crosbie was succeeded by his eldest son,
JAMES CROSBIE JP DL (1832-79), of Ballyheigue, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1862, Colonel, Kerry Militia, who espoused, in 1860, Rosa, daughter of Sir John Lister Lister-Kaye Bt, of Denby Grange, Yorkshire, and had issue,
Piers Lister (1860-78), died at Harrow;
JAMES DAYROLLES, of whom hereafter;
Kathleen Matilda; Rosa Marguerite; Marcia Ellen.
Mr Crosbie was succeeded by his eldest surviving son,
BRIGADIER-GENERAL JAMES DAYROLLES CROSBIE CMG DSO JP DL (1865-1947), of Ballyheigue, High Sheriff of County Kerry, 1894, who married, in 1894, Maria Caroline, daughter of Major James Leith VC, Scots Greys, and granddaughter of Sir Alexander Leith, of Glenkindie, and had issue, an only child, OONAGH MARY.
BALLYHEIGUE CASTLE, near Tralee, County Kerry, was originally low, long and thatched, facing on to an enclosed courtyard, where there was a stone tower, part of an ancient castle.
The original house on this site was constructed about 1758, but was renovated and enlarged to the design of Richard Morrison ca 1809.
The last member of the family, Brigadier Crosbie, sold Ballyheigue Castle in 1912.
The building was used as a prison at the time of the Irish civil war in 1920.
It was burnt in 1921.
Very little of the original remains, but some renovation has taken place and there is holiday accommodation at the site, now surrounded by the Golf Course.
A wing was reconstructed and remodelled about 1975, to accommodate use as apartments, with the remainder of the building now ruinous.
https://theirishaesthete.com/2022/10/24/ballyheigue/
Particularly Commodious October 24th
In 1680 two sisters from County Offaly, Elizabeth and Jane Hamilton, were married on the same day. While Elizabeth married Sir Thomas Crosbie, Jane married Sir Thomas’s eldest son (from an earlier marriage), David. Thus the latter’s heir Maurice, future first Baron Branden, was both nephew and cousin of Sir Thomas and Elizabeth Crosbie’s eldest son, also called Thomas. While David inherited the family’s main estate at Ardfert, County Kerry (see An Incomplete Story « The Irish Aesthete), Thomas Crosbie was left another estate further north in the same county at Ballyheigue. The ancient family formerly in occupation here were the Cantillons who supposedly occupied some kind of fortified building; they were displaced in the 17th century by the Crosbies (who, in turn, had been moved by the English government from their own traditional lands in Offaly). The younger Thomas died in late 1730, supposedly after he suffered from exposure and fatigue involved in rescuing the crew and cargo of a Danish vessel, the Golden Lion, which had become stranded on the local coast: the cargo happened to include 12 chests of silver valued at £20,000. A complex drama involving the disappearance of at least some of this silver, and the possible involvement of Thomas’s widow, Lady Margaret Barry (a daughter of the second Earl of Barrymore) then followed; what exactly happened and who benefitted from the theft has never been clearly established. In any case, a new residence was built at Ballyheigue c.1758 by Colonel James Crosbie, heir to the younger Thomas. Seemingly this was a long, low thatched property, by then somewhat old-fashioned in style, and surrounded by an orchard, gardens and bowling green. It was his grandson, another colonel also called James and an MP, first of the Irish Parliament and then, after the 1800 Act of Union, of the Westminster Parliament, who gave the house, renamed Ballyheigue Castle, its present – albeit now semi-ruinous – appearance. …[see website]
Irish Historic Houses 