Clonmeen, Banteer, Co Cork – whole house airbnb
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. 87. “Late Victorian house of roughhewn red sandstone ashlar with half-timbered gables. Built 1893 by Stephen Grehan; replacing a Georgian house nearby, which was kept in repair as a secondary residence. Near-symmetrical front with central gable above mullioned window above balustraded porch; single-storey three sided mullioned bow on either side; lower service wing ending in another gable. Impressive top-lit staircase hall; pitch-pine staircase and gallery. Sold ca 1975.”
The Buildings of Ireland. Cork City and County. Frank Keohane. Yale University Press: New Haven and London. 2020.
The fortified houses of the late C16 and early C17 constitute a bridge between the medieval tower house and the modern mansion. They were built by old Norman families, at Castle Lyons and Ightermurragh (Ladysbridge); by city merchants, such as the Archdeacons at Monkstown; by English settlers, at Baltimore, Coppinger’s Court (Rosscarbery) and Mallow; and by Gaelic chiefs, at Coolnalong (Durrus), Mount Long (Oysterhaven), Kanturk, Dromaneen (Mallow) and Reendiseart (Ballylickey). Twenty-two such houses survive in Cork.
In comparison to tower houses, these houses are better lit, have thinner walls, lack vaults, and feature timber floors and staircases as well as integral fireplaces. They are also notably symmetrical in plan and elevation, and some, such as Kanturk, incorporate proto-classical features. They generally retain some defensive features, such as door yetts, gunloops, bartizans and crenellated parapets, [p. 18] although their wall-walks were not all continuous, and in cases such as Mount Long and Monkstown were barely accessible. The other notable feature is the use of towers or turrets, influenced no doubt by the Elizabethan fashion for a quasi-military appearance derived from an earlier chivalric age. The arrangement of the towers gives rise to distinctive plan-forms: U plan (Coolnalong), Y-plan (Mallow and Coppinger’s court), L-plan (Dromaneen (Mallow) and Mossgrove (Templemartin), cross-plan (Kilmaclenine, Ightermurragh), X-plan (Kanturk, Monkstown, Mount Long, Aghadown), Z-plan (Ballyannan (Midleton), and T-Plan (Reendiseart). Baltimore, Carrigrohane, Castle Lyons, Myrtle Grove (Youghal) and Castlemartyr aer simple rectangular blocks. A number of Jacobean bawns with circular corner towers also survive, at Ballinterry (Rathcormac), Dromiscane (Millstreet), Dromagh, Clonmeen (Banteer) and Mossgrove.”
p. 45. Few significant country houses were built during the latter half of the C19. Most are of small to middling size, often with minimal Tudor or Italian trim. Unpretentious Italianate is found as Lissard (1854-5) near Skibbereen, Farran (1866) and Ballyvolane (1872) near Castlelyons. The finest of these Italianate houses is Montenotte House in Cork, with its double height top-lit cortile in the manner of Barry’s clubs in London. Lewis Villamy designed Lisselane (1851-3) near Clonakilty in a loose French-chateau idiom. Gothic houses are much rarer; exceptions include Dunboy (1866-70) near Castletownbere, a virtuoso Tudor Gothic house wiht mullioned-and-transomed windows mingled with Continental motifs in an assured and robust composition.
p. 46. With its Scots Baronial stepped gables and corbelled tourelles, Blarney Castle House (1871-5) by the Belfast architect John Lanyon, is unique in Cork. The influence of Ruskin in both detailing and materials can be seen in a number of houses designed by William Atkins: Velvetstown, Ardavilling, and Parknamore. Lettercollum (1872) near Timoleague, by William H. Hill, and Thorncliffe (1865) at Monkstown, by Thomas N. Deane, are in a similar vein. After the 1880s major houses are rare, but there are good late C19 Jacobean interiors at Fota and Lota Lodge (Glanmire).
The Edwardian Domestic Revival or Free Style, which favoured picturesque forms in brick and terracotta with gables, tall chimneys, tile-hanging, and mullioned and leaded windows, is generally confined to lodges, as at Castletownsend and Castle Mary (Cloyne), and to suburban houses in Cork city. Ashlin’s Clonmeen House (Banteer) is a rare country-house example. The Pavilion at Fitzgerald’s Park, Cork, is also Free Style and incorporates some Art Nouveau decorative elements. The last great country house to be built in Cork is Hollybrook Hall near Skibbereen, in a Free Style employing classical and rustic elements, with a wonderfully eclectic range of interiors. The garden buildings by Harold Peto at Ilnacullin were designed in a similar spirit.”
http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/property-list.jsp?letter=C
Clonmeen House:
Built in 1893 for Stephen Grehan and designed by George Ashlin. This house remained in the possession of the Grehan family until the 1970s. In the 1940s the Irish Tourist Association Survey noted it as the residence of Major Grehan. Late in the twentieth century it functioned as a hotel for some time but has now returned to private ownership.
Clonmeen Lodge:
Hajba writes that this house was the home of Cornelius O’Callaghan in 1750. In 1786 Wilson refers to “Bantyre” as the seat of Mr. Callaghan. Viscount Lismore is recorded as proprietor of Clonmeen in 1814. At the time of Griffith’s Valuation Clonmeen Lodge was occupied by George Grehan and held from Viscount Lismore. It was valued at £7+. The Grehans continued to use this house as a secondary residence while their main residence was in Dublin. In 1893 a much larger house, Clonmeen House, was built close to the lodge. In the 1940s the Irish Tourist Association Survey noted “The Lodge, Banteer” as the residence of Jerome O’Callaghan and stated that the house had originally been built by the Nash family as a fishing lodge. A building is still extant at the site.
https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/20903114/clonmeen-house-gougane-co-cork
Detached irregular-plan dormered two-storey house over basement, built 1893, facing east. Front elevation has four-bay first floor, three-bay ground floor and gabled projecting entrance bay flanked by canted-bay windows. Porch to entrance, roof having balcony above and supported by engaged columns. Gabled projecting bay to south elevation having box-bay window to east side. Recessed lower five-bay two-storey block to north having gabled end bay to north end. Hipped slate roof to main block, pitched to gables, having decorative terracotta ridge cresting to roof and dormers, with terracotta finials, cast-iron rainwater goods and brick chimneystacks. Half-timbering to gables, entrance gable being jettied, with decorative medallions to bargeboards. Dressed rusticated red sandstone walls with plinth course, having Grehan coat of arms to balcony, with openwork ornamentation to flanking panels. Segmental-headed two and three-light windows to first floor, to ground floor of south projection and to north block, all with timber casement windows. Bay windows have timber mullioned and transomed windows with moulded cornices and hipped roofs. Porch has round-headed doorway with carved timber panelled door having elaborate fanlight and is flanked by round-headed sidelights with elaborate glazing, openings having carved archivolts and being flanked by engaged columns supporting balcony overhead. Columns have decoratively carved capitals and moulded bases. Two moulded limestone steps to doorway. Dormered Gothic-style window to first floor of north block, lighting chapel. Double-height staircase hall with galleries and lit by glazed dome. Entrance gates comprise rusticated limestone square-profile inner and outer piers with plinths and caps, snecked red sandstone quadrant walls with dressed coping stones, and double-leaf vehicular and single-leaf pedestrian cast-iron gates. Three-bay two-storey steward’s house to north having hipped slate roof and rendered walls, with lower four-bay two-storey return and ranges of outbuildings with pitched slate roofs and exposed rubble limestone walls. Demesne also contains woodland, gardens and ornamental lake.
This house was designed by the well-known church architect, George Ashlin, to replace an earlier, Georgian, house, retained. The building contains a host of architectural details typical of the domestic architecture of the turn of the twentieth century. The ornamentation to the entrance bay is particularly fine.
My place is close to many activities including adventure parks (ballyhass lakes), golf clubs, fishing, horse riding, trekking and some of the best restaurants in North Cork. You’ll love my place because of the ambiance, outdoors space, and the views. My place is good for families (with kids) or family reunion. Great place for building family memories.
The space
It is our family holiday home with lots of great family rooms and a good kitchen to hang out with your family, friends and kids. Near Kanturk, Mallow and Millstreet. 40 mins from Cork and Killarney.
Guest access
There’s a lot of parking in front and at the side of the house.
https://www.castles.nl/clonmeen-castle
Clonmeen Castle lies in a field south of the river Blackwater, east of the village of Banteer in County Cork in Ireland.
There may have been an earlier castle at this site, held by Philip O’Mol in the 14th century. In the 1590’s a new castle was built here, probably incorporating older structures. This new castle probably was built by Connoghor O’Callaghan and was an important seat for the O’Callaghan’s. During the wars of the 1640s, the clan was forfeited and the castle destroyed. I don’t have any other historical information. If you know more, please mail me.
Clonmeen Castle now consists of a somewhat square bawn with circular flankers at three of its corners. There is a gap in the wall at the west end of the south side which at present serves as the entrance.There is also a narrow inserted gateway near the north end of the west side. The flanker in the southeast is the best preserved, with several gunloops. There probably was a keep in the center of the bawn, which was demolished and used to build a lime kiln northeast of the castle.
There isn’t a lot to be seen here and what there is, is quite overgrown. Not very interesting.
Irish Historic Houses 