Rathurles House, Nenagh, 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. 240. (Brereton/IFR) A two storey Georgian house, six bay front with pedimented and fanlighted doorway flanked by two narrow windows. Windows with external shutters.”
Detached six-bay two-storey over half basement house, built c. 1800, with three-bay gable elevations. Hipped slate roof having rendered chimneystacks. Rendered walls to upper storeys, roughly dressed limestone walls, moulded limestone eaves course, basement string course and having round-headed alcoves to gables. Square-headed openings with timber sash six-over-six pane windows to first floor, timber casement to ground, and replacement timber with brick voussoirs to basement, all with cut stone sills. Inserted early eighteenth-century carved limestone Gibbsian doorcase, flanked by sidelights with replacement windows and having replacement glazed timber door with lintel and cobweb fanlight above, surmounted by open-bed pediment supported on consoles. Flight of limestone steps leading to door. Ruins of earlier castle to site.
Appraisal
The form and scale of this house are enhanced by the retention of features such as timber sash and casement windows and roof slates. The diminishing windows and well-carved Gibbsian doorway are typical of Georgian-style architecture.
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Rathurles was the home of the Brereton family in the 19th century. Occupied by John Brereton in 1814 and T. Brereton in 1837. In 1840 the Ordnance Survey Name Books refer to it as “a modern building”. Thomas Brereton was still resident at the time of Griffith’s Valuation holding the property valued at £27.15 shillings from Patrick Kernan. Home of Hugh Finch in the 1870s. This house is still extant and occupied.
Irish Historic Houses 