Ballintober House, Co Cork  – demolished  

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. 19. “(Meade, Clanwilliam, E/PB; Meade/LG1972) “A house of 2 storeys built during  and half of C17 by Lt-Col William Meade. Seven bay centre with gable-ended projecting wings; pediments over first floor windows; tall chimneys. Long two storey service range at side. Forecourt with railings and tall rusticated piers; Formal gardens with banked terraces and bulstraded steps to a gateway, also with rusticated piers. In 1765 Sir John Meade, 4^th Bt, married the heiress of the Hawkins Magill family of Gill Hall, co Down, becoming first Earl of Clanwilliam 1776. His interests were henceforth centred on his wife’s estates, and he sold Ballintober and his other estates in Co Cork 1787 to his cousin, Rev John Meade, whose nephew was the ancestor of the Meades who lived at Ballintober until the present century. The House was demolished in the 1940s.” 

https://theirishaesthete.com/2019/06/12/whats-left/

“The rusticated limestone gate posts that once led to Ballintober House, County Cork. An old print shows these situated on another site, high above the now-lost house which had been built in the mid-to-late 17th century by the Meade family. Of Gaelic origin, the Meades were long-established in the Cork region, their name sometimes spelled Meagh or Miagh. Adapting and prospering according to changing circumstances, they became considerable landowners and by the early 18th century had been created baronets. In 1765 Sir John Meade, 4th Bt of Ballintober married one of the richest heiresses of the period, Theodosia, daughter of Robert Hawkins Magill of Gill Hall, County Down: eleven years later he became the first Earl of Clanwilliam. He later sold Ballintober and other lands in the area to a cousin, but the Meades remained in the area until the 1940s, after which the house here was demolished. Believed to date from c.1720 these gate posts and a few other remnants in the vicinity survive to indicate the importance of the Ballintober estate.”

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. 45.