Mount Falcon, Borrisokane, Co Tipperary
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. 213. “(Falkiner/LGI1912) An early C18 house of two storeys over a basement, built 1720 by Richard Falkiner. Five bay front, small floating pediment with ball-finial on peak, round-headed window in tympanum. Partly balustraded roof parapet. Pedimented doorcase with blocking.”
Detached T-plan five-bay two-storey over basement house, built in 1720, having dormer attic and three-bay three-storey with attic return, and single- and two-storey additions. Pitched slate main roof and monopitch additions, having cut stone chimneystacks. Ornamented limestone ashlar pediment with marigold paterae and incised date and initials of builder. Partly balustraded parapet having cut stone cornices and ball finials. Front façade rendered in nineteenth century with quoins and hood moulding to windows added. Remainder of walls have lime render. Six-over-six pane timber sash windows with limestone sills, having three-over-three pane round-headed window to pediment, some four-over-eight timber sash windows to return, small-pane casements to gables and to lower floors of return and additions, with some pivoted round windows and some uPVC windows also to return. Cut stone Gibbsian door surround to front entrance with limestone steps over basement, timber panelled door and margined overlight. Partly rendered limestone wall attached to north gable of house, screening farmyard and has castellations, turret, decorative gable to outbuilding and pointed doorway. Farmyard has single- and two-storey stone outbuildings, one having slate roof, and rear screen wall with castellated round-arched gateway. Ruined gate lodge located to main road south-west of house.
Appraisal
A large example of an early eighteenth-century T-plan house which, although the appearance of the front façade was altered in the nineteenth century, retains most of its original fabric, form and character. Built by Richard Faulkner, the initials and date ‘RFM 1720’ are carved in the stonework of the pediment to the front façade. Many important features are retained including small-pane timber sash windows, fine cut stone details, and a large rear yard with outbuildings and high stone wall. Significant interior elements survive also.
http://landedestates.nuigalway.ie/LandedEstates/jsp/property-list.jsp?letter=M
Bence Jones writes that this house was built in 1720 by Richard Falkiner. It was the seat of the Falkiner family in the 18th and 19th centuries. The Ordnance Survey Name Books refer to it as the seat of Richard Fitzpatrick Falkiner (a minor) in 1840 and that it was occupied by Obediah Holan. At the time of Griffith’s Valuation the house was valued at £15. It is still extant.
Paddy Rossmore. Photographs. Edited by Robert O’Byrne. The Lilliput Press, Dublin 7, 2019.
“Relatively few early eighteenth-century houses have survived and remain occupied in Ireland, which makes Mount Falcon all the more precious. It appears to have been built for one Richard Falkiner (b. 1691) whose Yorkshire born father had moved to Ireland. In the pediment of the house’s facade are carved the initials RFM and the date 1720: the latter is the year Richard Falkiner married Maria Rogers whose parents were settled nearby in Ballynavin, County Tipperary. Thus Mount Falcon is presumed to have been built at the time of the Falkiner marraige, although Richard would died just thirteen years later leaving the estate to his twelve-year old heir, also called Richard. Mount Falcon is relatively unsophisticaed in design while showing awareness of contemporary trends in architecture. Of two storeys over semiraised basement and with five bays, it is a relatively shallow house (there is an extension to the rear in a T shape) with broad gables carrying chimneys at either end. The facade is distinguished by a Gibbsian door reached by a flight of limestone steps and at the top of the building a pediment wiht an arched attic window flanked by a shallow paterae, the whole topped by a ball finial (with two more at either frontage). The balustrade and window ornamentation look to be later additions but othersie Mount Falcon is an excellent example of the kind of residence built by members of the Irish gentry once peace settled over the country in the eighteenth century.”
Irish Historic Houses 