

Temple House, County Sligo has featured here before (see Thinking Big « The Irish Aesthete), on which occasion the immensity of the building was discussed. The property’s stableyard was constructed on a similarly substantial scale, reflecting the affluence of the Perceval family at the time. The main house, dating from 1825 and built in the then-fashionable neo-classical style, was greatly altered and enlarged less than half a century later and no doubt the same was also true of the U-shaped stables, entered through gateposts on the south-west side of the site. Facing this is a carriage entrance taking the form of a pedimented triumphal arch with Doric pilasters on either side and a clock tower cupola above. On either side are eleven-bay, tw0-storey wings, of ashlar limestone like all the rest, and centred on three-bay pedimented breakfronts. An exceptionally handsome ensemble that will, in time, find a new purpose.
Category Archives: Clock Tower
Commemorating a Life-long Devotion


The clock tower which stands in the centre of Ardagh, County Longford. The village was part of the estate belonging to Sir Thomas John Fetherston who in the early 1860s employed James Rawson Carroll to design new houses and amenities for its residents. Built in 1863 by the architect’s brother, Thomas Henry Carroll, the clock tower stands in the centre of Ardagh’s picturesque Green and was erected in memory of Sir Thomas’ uncle, Sir George Ralph Fetherston. His widow paid for the monument which, according to an inscription at the base, commemorates her late-husband’s ‘life-long devotion to the moral and social improvement of his tenantry.’



