Category Archives: Heritage at Risk

Honest Tom




Text here…On the banks of the river Fergus in Ennis, County Clare stands a stone known as Steele’s Rock. On this, supposedly, in the early 19th century sat a man called Thomas Steele who used it as a vantage point from which to gaze on a nearby house called Abbeyfield (today a garda station, see: In need of TLC « The Irish Aesthete). Therein lived a young lady, Miss Crowe, with whom Steele was much in love but his passion was not reciprocated and, it seems, she never even troubled to notice her putative suitor. This tale is only one of many told about Thomas Steele, certainly one of the more colourful characters living in Ireland at the time. Born in 1788 to a gentry family, he had been raised by his uncle and namesake at Cullane, a house built just a few years before his birth and beautifully sited on the western shore of Lough Cullaunyheeda: following his uncle’s death in 1821 he inherited the property. Most country gentlemen would have settled down to enjoy their estate, but Thomas Steele was never wont to behave like most country gentlemen. A classical scholar of note, throughout his life he was inclined to become involved in a variety of different projects. In 1825, for example, having undertaken experiments with underwater diving apparatus, he patented ‘Steele’s improved diving-bell.’ and around the same time became a partner in the Vigo Bay Co., which was trying to recover gold and silver bullion from Spanish ships sunk in Vigo Bay in 1702. A complete failure, the company was wound up somewhat acrimoniously in 1826, but this didn’t deter him: an associate of the English diving siblings John and Charles Deane, in 1836 Steele used their new diving helmet to explore the wreck of the Intrinsic soon after he had sunk off the County Clare coast. Interested in developing equipment to provide underwater illumination, four years later he dived with the Deanes to look at the wreck of Henry VIII’s great ship, the Mary Rose, off Portsmouth. But prior to these enterprises, in 1823, he had decided to go to Spain and join rebels fighting against the absolutist monarch Ferdinand VII. Accordingly, he mortgaged the house and land at Cullane for some £10,000, using the funds raised to buy arms and shipping these to Spain. Once there, he joined the Legion Estrenjera of the rebel army, distinguishing himself in the battle of the Trocadero and the defence of  Cadiz. Following the liberals’ defeat, he returned to Ireland and published an account of what he had witnessed,, Notes on the war in Spain (1824). 





A couple of years after returning from Spain, Thomas Steele found another cause with which to become involved: Catholic Emancipation. Which is not to suggest he planned to become a Roman Catholic: he had previously written a letter to the elderly Pope Pius VII urging him to convert to Protestantism. But after meeting Daniel O’Connell, Steele had become an ardent supporter of the latter’s Catholic Association and was soon appointed its Vice-President of the Association. Although he never converted from the Established church, on his land at Cullane he erected an outdoor altar, so that mass could be said there any time O’Connell visited: the ‘altar’ was actually a dolmen cap stone that had previously stood at what was believed to be the dead centre of Ireland near Birr, County Offaly: it has since been returned to its original site). In 1828 Steele seconded O’Connell’s nomination for election in County Clare and was with him with the Catholic Relief Bill of 1829 passed. Strongly supportive of his hero’s repudiation of physical violence and despite being called the ‘Head Pacificator’, Steele was a noted duellist who that same year fought an inconclusive duel with William Smith O’Brien over what he believed to be a personal slight from the latter. More importantly, his total belief in O’Connell, and his personal disregard for money, led him to be popularly known as ‘Honest Tom’. Once Catholic Emancipation had been achieved, he continued to give his support to the next great cause: the repeal of the 1800 Act of Union. Following the government’s prohibition of the Clontarf monster meeting in October 1843, Steele was tried on conspiracy charges and imprisoned with O’Connell in Richmond jail. So closely was he allied with O’Connell that he never recovered from the latter’s death in May 1847 and the following April, suffering from depression and facing financial ruin, he jumped off Waterloo Bridge in London. Although rescued from the water, he never received and died in June 1848. His body returned to Ireland, he was buried in Glasnevin cemetery, Dublin, beside O’Connell’s tomb.





A date stone at Cullane is market 1799, but the house is thought to date from the early 1780s. Of two storeys over basement, the three-bay facade has a central breakfront with fan-lit doorcase on the ground floor and tripartite window above; between the two there used to be a carved stone bearing the Steele coat of arms, but this has been removed. On the eastern side, and overlooking the lake, the house is of three storeys, with a great central bow and tripartite windows to left and right of the ground floor. No interior decoration survives. Since Miss Crowe of Ennis refused to acknowledge or return his ardour, Thomas Steele had never married, and after his death the Cullane estate was inherited by a niece, Maria Wogan, married to Charles FitzGerald Studdert of Newmarket House. Their descendants continued to live there until 1954 when the place was sold to the Land Commission and the house left to fall into its present state of ruin, a sad end for what had once been the home of one of Daniel O’Connell’s most ardent supporters. 



Requiring Restoration



The former north gate lodge at Barraghcore, County Kilkenny. J.A.K Dean dates this building to c.1835, while http://www.buildingsofireland propose it was constructed a decade earlier. A singularly stocky example of the genre, of T-form with the stem projecting forward. While the rear is a blank wall, the other three sides have large tripartite windows, giving more light to the interior than was often the case. The window surrounds, although now painted, are of granite, as is the tall doorcase and the corbels supporting the hipped roof. An unusually well-designed lodge, this could easily be restored and made into an attractive residence.


The End of an Era



‘One of the State’s most exclusive boarding schools for girls is to close because the congregation which owns it has insufficient nuns to keep it open.
Our Lady’s secondary school, Clermont, in Rathnew, Co Wicklow, is scheduled to close by June 2004, although final arrangements are subject to negotiation with parents.
The owners, the small Christian Education congregation, has not had a single entrant since 1973. In a statement yesterday it said: “There is no religious personnel for the management or trusteeship of this boarding school into the future.”
The order came to Ireland following an invitation from the former Archbishop of Dublin, Dr John Charles McQuaid, in 1956. He wanted the order to provide places for children of Catholic parents who had been sending their daughters to boarding schools in Britain.’
Irish Times, February 2nd 2001





‘A drop in the number of nuns entering the Benedictine Order has forced the prestigious Kylemore Abbey School in Connemara, Co Galway to shut its doors.
After operating for 84 years as a boarding school, Mother Abbess Magdalena FitzGibbon OSB said the decline in vocations to the order had necessitated the closure of the secondary school.
“In common with other orders, many of our sisters have reached retirement age and with no new entrants, we no longer have the personnel necessary for the management and trusteeship of the school. We very much regret having to make this decision but having looked at the options, we are left with no alternative,” she said.
In a letter to parents, staff, the Department of Education and Science and local primary schools, Mother FitzGibbon said it was with great sadness that the trustees decided to close the school in August 2010.
The Benedictine community at the Abbey has now fallen to around 14 nuns.’
Irish Examiner, 6th February 2006





‘A long running tradition of education will come to an end in February when the Sisters of Mercy closes its convent on The Shannon [Enniscorthy]. The six remaining nuns resident in the building beside St. Senan’s will be dispersed to other accommodation in February, it was confirmed to parishioners at the weekend.
‘There is a sadness,’ admitted Sister Elizabeth Breen, who was a member of the full time staff at Coláiste Bríde until she retired in 2002. ‘We have very good memories of the town and the people.’
The order was first called in during 1858 to provide primary education, especially for the poor of Enniscorthy. They eventually moved out of primary schooling to provide a secondary school and they leave a legacy to the town in the form of Coláiste Bride, across the road from the soon to be closed convent.
‘The Mercy order made a massive contribution,’ mused Tom Sheridan, principal at Coláiste Bríde, which still often referred to in Enniscorthy by its nickname of ‘The Mercy’. It is eight years since there was a member of the order on the staff, since Sister Elizabeth Breen retired in 2002, though she has occasionally worked there since in a part-time capacity. Just last week she was back on the campus running religious retreats for first year students.’
Irish Independent, 23rd November 2010



Photographs of a former convent school in County Offaly

A Wife’s Devoted Attention



The Wilson Lynch family of Belvoir, County Clare may have been descended from one Ralph Wilson, a Cromwellian soldier who settled in this part of the world in the mid-17th century and served as Mayor of Limerick city in 1657, 1663, 1664, 1667 and 1668. In any case, at the end of the same century, a Richard Wilson was acting as agent for Sir Donough O’Brien, first baronet of Lemeneagh and Dromoland. In 1712, his son, also called Richard, leased the lands of Ballycullen from Henry O’Brien, seventh Earl of Thomond: these lands would form a large portion of the eventual Belvoir estate. The Wilsons, who somewhat unusually were Roman Catholic, continued to reside here until the mid-19th century. Richard junior had been succeeded by his eldest son John, who married late in life and died in 1797, leaving a seven year-old son, David John Wilson. On reaching adulthood, he proved to be a landlord with serious concern for improving the condition of his tenantry, building a number of schools on his estate, and also developing one of the first model agricultural schools in the country at Belvoir. Following what became known as the Sixmilebridge Massacre in July 1852 (when soldiers opened fire on a group of protestors during an election, leading to the deaths of seven persons and leaving the same number injured), he published a pamphlet denouncing what had happened and then established a relief fund  for the families of the victims. David J Wilson died in April 1864 when the Belvoir estate passed to his nephew John Wilson Lynch. 





The Lynchs were one of the Tribes of Galway, the 14 powerful families who had effectively ruled the city during the Middle Ages and subsequently become landowners in the surrounding counties. Roman Catholic, like the Wilsons, at the start of the 19th century Mark Lynch of Renmore, County Galway, a successful banker and merchant, was able to buy the Durus (or Doorus) estate outside Kinvara, County Galway from its previous owner, Jacques, Comte de Basterot. In 1820, Mark Lynch’s son, Patrick Marcus Lynch, married Ellen, sister of David John Wilson. Some years later, when Wilson found himself in financial difficulties, his brother-in-law, Patrick M Lynch, lent him money secured by a mortgage on Belvoir and the prospect of a life interest in the Belvoir estate for Lynch’s son John. In due course, following Lynch’s death in 1864, John Wilson Lynch came to be responsible for Belvoir, although he does not seem ever to have lived there, instead leasing the house and surrounding land. By further agreement with David John Wilson’s widow, Mary, on John Wilson Lynch’s death, the estate was to be inherited by his second son, if he should have one. At this time, Wilson Lynch had a very substantial property: according to the 1876 Landowners of Ireland his Duras estate ran to almost 5,410 acres, while the Belvoir estate covered just over 3,100 acres. Within a couple of decades, however, circumstances began to change rapidly, due to the Land Wars and accompanying unrest among tenants. In December 1885, for example, the wife of John Murphy, Belvoir estate bailiff, was shot in the leg. Accordingly, John Wilson Lynch began to sell much of the land and by the time of his death in 1911 he had embarked on disposing of the greater part of the old Belvoir estate. Accordingly, by 1922 his successor there, a younger son William Wilson Lynch, retained just the house and part of the demesne. On his death, he left the property to a housekeeper.





Belvoir would appear to be an 18th century house built by one of the Wilson family, perhaps John who lived here until his death in 1797. A month later, the place was advertised to let, since his heir David John Wilson was, as mentioned, then only a minor of seven. In 1814 it was recorded as being unoccupied in 1814, but presumably some time after that date David John Wilson decided to restore the building and gave its regular two-storey over basement, five bay facade a superficial Gothic makeover. With Tudoresque hooded mouldings over the windows and an ogee doorcase inside an arched porch featuring the family coat of arms. As for the interior, it would seem to have followed the usual layout of two smaller reception rooms to the front and two larger to the rear, with entrance and staircase halls occupying the central portion of the building.  Given that he had other residences elsewhere in Counties Clare and Galway, John Wilson Lynch does not seem to have lived in Belvoir and in 1872, presumably following the death of Mary Wilson,  the house’s furniture was sent to his properties at Duras and Kilcornan. Belvoir was then let to a Lady Loftus, and during the following decade was burnt down; despite an insurance claim, it was never rebuilt. Instead, when William Wilson Lynch came to this there with his wife in the second decade of the last century, they occupied the old service courtyard, which lies to the north-west of the main building; this remained in use until relatively recently but has now begun to fall into ruin. The other notable feature of the property is a chapel to the north of the house and linked to it by a Gothic screen wall. An arch above the doorcase proclaims, ‘The Ladye Chapel, Erected in return for a Wife’s Devoted Attention during a Severe Illness in 1862 & 1863.’ This indicates the little three-bay, single storey building was constructed towards the end of John Wilson Wright’s life in gratitude for his wife Mary’s care. The chapel was maintained and seemingly still in use until a few years ago, but alas has since been vandalised and some of its stained glass windows broken. It seems only a matter of time before it falls into the same condition as the rest of the site. 


Pretty Vacant



On the main street of Shinrone, County Offaly, what should be a pretty family home but is now a vacant and much vandalised property. Likely dating from the 19th century when the village was more prosperous, the building’s interior shows evidence that this was once a fine residence.Inside the hall and facing the entrance, the wall is divided in three by slender arches, the space to the left containing a staircase, that to the right a passageway leading to the rear of the house, while the centre one takes the form of a niche. Reception rooms to the left and right of the hall show further evidence of former glory, all now abandoned and in decay.



A Pocket Mansion




Currently for sale, this miniature Tudorbethan house stands a short distance north-east from the site of Kiltanon, County Clare. A substantial property, the latter was built in the 1830s for the Molonys, an ancient Irish family, one of whom – John O’Molony, Roman Catholic Bishop of Limerick – followed James II to Paris where he helped to found the Irish College, in which he was buried following his death in 1702. In Ireland, the Molonys subsequently converted to the Established Church but they kept a souvenir of their Catholic forebear: a grey marble table inlaid with two hands of old French cards and a knave of diamonds torn in half as if they had just been thrown down. Seemingly, this piece of furniture had been presented by Louis XIV to the bishop in restitution for the king’s fit of pique over a game of cards in which the cleric was a participant. The table was supposedly lost, along with the rest of Kiltanon’s contents, when the building was burnt by the IRA in September 1920. Given its (somewhat weathered) appearance, it would appear that this little house was once part of the Molony estate and constructed around the same time as the main residence itself.



A Monument to the Past



Few people today will be familiar with the name of William Delany, Jesuit priest and one of the great educationalists of the late 19th century. Born the son of a baker in County Carlow, in 1860 at the age of 25 he was sent to teach at St Stanislaus’s College, then a Jesuit secondary school in County Offaly. Ten years later, Delany became the college’s Rector and embarked on an expansionist policy which led to rebukes from his superiors (the school ran up substantial debts due to his building programme). What they, and everyone else, could not deny, was the quality of education received by students at St Stanislaus’s College, which led them to seek further academic qualifications. At the time, the Catholic University of Ireland, founded in 1851, could not legally confer degrees, and Cardinal Cullen had forbidden Roman Catholics from attending other third-level institutions because they were non-denominational, denouncing them as ‘godless colleges.’ From 1876 Delany overcame this problem by entering his students for the London University examinations, where they achieved one hundred percent success: in 1881 a First Place and First Exhibition were secured by boys at St Stanislaus’s College, competing against thousands of English entrants. Delany would soon leave the school, and was instead appointed the first president of the new University College Dublin (the successor to the Catholic University) where he achieved equal success. However, despite its academic achievements, in 1886 St Stanislaus’s College closed as a boys’ school. The debts caused by Delany’s building programmes, along with the shortage of Jesuit priests in Ireland, forced the order to make certain decisions, one of which was to focus attention Clongowes Wood College, County Kildare, despite the fact that the latter’s record was not as good as that of the County Offaly school.  






St Stanislaus’s College, popularly known as Tullabeg, dates back to 1818. The land on which it stands had been provided a few years earlier by a local woman, Maria O’Brien, whose father, a wealthy Roman Catholic merchant from Dublin, had bought an estate in the area: Rahan Lodge, originally built c.1740 as a hunting lodge. Initially it was intended that the new college would act as a novitiate for training Jesuit priests. However, before long it began to serve as a preparatory school for boys who would then go on to Clongowes Wood College. After several decades the school began to offer second level education to students and, as already mentioned, continued to do so until 1886. Two years later, a new purpose was found for the property, when it became the novitiate for the Irish province of the Jesuits; every young man who entered the order thereafter would spend a period of time at Tullabeg. This continued to be the case until 1930 when the novitiate was transferred to Emo Court, County Laois. Next the place became a faculty of philosophy for Jesuits who had already finished their studies at university. A further change of direction occurred in 1962 when the order decided to make Tullabeg a retreat centre; this finally closed in 1991. Thereafter the property seems to have had a chequered history, at one stage being used as a nursing home while a nine-hole golf course was installed in the grounds. 






St Stanislaus’s College is a building of diverse parts and periods, the whole adding up to a very substantial complex. The earliest part dates back to the second decade of the 19th century, when a south-facing block of three storeys over basement was constructed, its architectural style very much aping that of country houses of the period, with a flight of stone steps leading up to the main entrance, the door flanked by Ionic columns and topped by a generous fanlight. Over the following years, projecting wings were added on either side of this block, and then a church built to the immediate west. Once St Stanislaus’s College began to take in secondary school students, additional space was required, so in the early 1860s a large block to the east was added. Known as the Seaver Wing (after the rector of the period), the building, which is centred on a large three-bay breakfront featuring substantial tripartite fenestration, incorporated classrooms, dormitories and a refectory. Later in the same decade, a further wing was added parallel to and north of the original house; this held a college chapel and study hall, along with further accommodation. The work of this period was designed by successful Dublin architect Charles Geoghegan. During his time as rector, William Delany commissioned further work on the premises, rebuilding the students’ chapel, converting another chapel into a study hall and remodelling the east wing; he also had part of the local river deepened and enclosed to provide decent swimming facilities. Little of substance appears to have changed thereafter until the mid-1940s when Fr Donal O’Sullivan, then rector of St Stanislaus’s, commissioned the modernist architect Michael Scott to design a new chapel in the building; this had stained glass windows by Evie Hone, a timber altar and statues by sculptor Laurence Campbell and terracotta Stations of the Cross by French sculptor Robert Villiers. When the Jesuits left Tullabeg in 1991, they removed all these fittings and installed them in some of the order’s other properties. So those items were at least saved from the vandalism and decay that awaited the rest of the place and has led to its present decay. What can be done with such a vast range of buildings? Tullabeg is in a relatively remote part of the Irish midlands, in a rural area with few facilities. No doubt this isolation was beneficial when St Stanislaus’s operated as a religious house, but is now a distinct drawback. It would appear a few commercial ventures were attempted or considered here, but not found viable. So it sits, neglected and falling into further dereliction, a monument to another, now passed, era in the country’s history. 


Not Very Gay




In the mid-1780s, Ralph Smyth purchased the Gaybrook estate in County Westmeath from one John Gay (reputedly related to the earlier John Gay, whose 1728 ballad drama The Beggar’s Opera, produced by John Rich, was famously said to have made ‘Rich gay and Gay rich’). Advised by amateur architect, the Rev Daniel Beaufort, Smyth embarked on building a new residence for himself on the property, but the gates and lodges are of a later date, constructed by his younger son Robert who inherited the place in 1827. At the eastern end of the estate, the front elevation of this one, with a canted central bay, suggests the house was only on one level. However, examination of the rear indicates it was actually two storeys high. Dean, in his gazeteer of Leinster lodges, speaks of the octagonal entrance hall having ‘a delicately vaulted plaster ceiling’ but alas, no evidence of this now survives, in consequence of the lodge being long neglected. The house itself, having survived until the early 1970s, was subsequently demolished.



Not Long for This World



Unlikely to last much longer: a ruined tower house in County Tipperary known as Knigh Castle. The north-west portion of this four-storey building survives best, but much of the other walls has tumbled down, exposing the interior with its barrel-vaulted roof on the first floor. Despite occupying a prominent position on high ground beside a crossroads, little is known of Knigh Castle, and soon it threatens to become no more than a memory.


A Death on Main Street



Portarlington, County Laois has featured here on a couple of previous occasions (see A Boarded Up Boarding School « The Irish Aesthete and On the Market « The Irish Aesthete). In both instances, astonishment was expressed that so many historic buildings in what could be a jewel of a town – and a magnet for tourism in Ireland’s Midlands – were being left to fall into ruin. In Andrew Tierney’s 2019 guide to Central Leinster, Portarlington is politely described as ‘once elegant’, thereby only gently suggesting the place’s chronic decay and shabbiness. As mentioned previously, the town takes its name from Sir Henry Bennett, Baron Arlington, who was granted land here in 1667 by Charles II and created a settlement on his property. However, it was only at the end of the 17th century, after Portarlington had passed into the hands of Henri de Massue, second Marquis de Ruvigny (subsequently Baron Portarlington and Earl of Galway) that the town really began to prosper. The marquis was a Huguenot and, like many other members of his faith, had fled France after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. Spending much time in this country, he encouraged his co-religious to move to Portarlington, which soon became an important centre, not just for trade, but also for education; a considerable number of schools were established in houses around the town. However, the schools have long-since gone, and so too has all evidence of the town’s prosperity. 





Today’s pictures show the former Rectory on Portarlington’s Main Street. Although a considerable part of the town’s population in the 18th century was Huguenot, the Church of Ireland also had a presence here, as evidenced by this building, constructed around 1780, although somewhat altered a century later. Of five bays and two storeys over basement, its significance is indicated by the fact that the house has been slightly set back from the road, the door approached by a flight of stone steps. At some date, either late 19th or early 20th century, a small pavilion or kios, was erected in front of and linked to the southern part of the building. In due course, the rectory was used as offices while the kiosk served as a local branch of Allied Irish Bank, until it was closed down in October 2012. Since then, it would seem that the entire site has sat empty and left to fall into its present state of appalling dereliction; part of the rear of the old rectory has collapsed, its condition not helped by the demolition of the adjacent building to the immediate north. Last year, the former rectory was placed on the derelict sites list and this may have been responsible for the owners,  a County Monaghan-based development company, to apply for conversion of the property into a series of flats, with the additional construction of a three-storey block to the rear. On the other hand, the same company was previously granted permission for almost the same conversion in June 2019, and since then things have only grown worse. A death of Main Street: this is a sad state of affairs, but one now typical of Irish cities and towns in the 21st century.