Category Archives: Irish Town

Rare Survivors



Carlingford, County Louth is one of the few towns in Ireland to retain evidence of its mediaeval origins, not least thanks to this entrance gate: originally there were four but this is the only survivor. From the 15th century, the Tholsel operated as a toll gate where taxes were levied on any goods entering Carlingford, but in the 18th century it also acted as a gaol for the town. Once three storeys high, it lost one of them during alterations in the 19th century.
Not far from the Tholsel stands another mediaeval building known as the Mint. Although Carlingford was granted the right to mint coinage in 1467 it is more likely this three-storey building was a residence for one of the town’s wealthy families: however, the absence of a fireplace in the building leaves this matter open to question. The most notable feature are its five ogee windows. All have hood mouldings and are elaborately carved with a variety of forms including that of a horse, a bust of a man, a bird, a snake, as well as a variety of abstract Celtic interlace patterns.


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

A Model Village


‘What immediately strikes the stranger is the substantial and comfortable appearance of the mill and its surroundings. At Bessbrook each house consists of from three to five rooms, according to the size of the family occupying it. Every arrangement necessary to promote cleanliness and health is resorted to. As you pass up, some of the first buildings you come to are the schoolrooms, which are for girls and boys, and for lads in the evening who are engaged during the day. The infant-school attached is the most interesting feature; but you will be pleased with the clean appearance of the boys and girls—with their intelligence and readiness to learn. The staff of masters and mistresses employed is evidently superior…Every householder has to send his children there, or whether he sends them or not he is charged a penny for the schooling of each child. £100 is subscribed annually, I believe, by the mills, and there is, besides, a Government grant. The playground attached to the school is an extensive one, and the view from it very fine.
A few doors further on, and we come to the Dispensary. There are ills to which all flesh is heir, and to remove which the services of a medical man are required…All here are expected to subscribe to a medical club, and the Firm supplement the subscription with a handsome one of their own. Thus a doctor is secured, who comes to his Dispensary on certain days of the week, and who also, of course, visits the serious cases in their own homes.
Further on, we come to a building which we ascertain to be the Temperance Hotel. This is the club and newsroom of the place. In the winter-time it is highly popular. Many Irish papers and a few English ones are taken in, and, I may add, most diligently perused. Here also are Punch and Zozimus, or the Dublin Punch. There also chess and draughts are played, and smoking is permitted. Boys are here indulging in games, while the advanced politician has his favourite organ—Conservative or Liberal; and those who care for neither, discuss matters connected with the neighbourhood, and the state of affairs at home.’
Extract from Bessbrook and its Linen Mills by J. Ewing Ritchie (London, 1876)





As seen today, Bessbrook, County Armagh dates from the mid-19th century when it was developed as a model village by the Quaker businessman John Grubb Richardson. From the second quarter of the 17th century to the end of the 19th century, the land on which the village stands was owned by the Caulfeilds, later Earls of Charlemont. Taking advantage of the river Camlough, a linen mill with bleaching green was established here in 1760 by the Pollock family, and in 1802 this business passed into the hands of Joseph Nicholson; the village’s name derives from that of his wife Elizabeth, or Bess. Following a fire in the scutching mill in 1839, the complex went into decline before being acquired by Richardson who had previously worked in his family’s successful family linen export company, JN Richardson Sons and Owden. It was Richardson who transformed the existing settlement into a model village for the workers in his linen mill which lay a short distance to the south and came to employ around 2,000 workers. A precursor of the better-known Bournville established by another Quaker family, the Cadburys, near Birmingham in England, by the end of the 19th century Bessbrook accommodated some 3,000 persons in 700 houses, many of them living in two-storey houses of rubble granite with red brick dressings. Two large squares – Charlemont Square and College Square – were linked by Fountain Street with a number of other streets running off this. All major Christian denominations, Church of Ireland, Roman Catholic, Methodist and Presbyterian, were provided with plots on which to construct a place of worship and as a Quaker Richardson provided a meeting house for members of his faith. As was noted by J. Ewing Ritchie in 1876, Richardson established a school for boys and girls, and built houses for its teachers, along with providing very many other facilities for the town’s residents: a dispensary, savings bank, orphanage, convalescent home, allotment gardens, gas lighting and hydro-electric tramway.He paid for a large building, called the Institute but known as the Town Hall, where meetings and recreational activities could be held. And, as also noted by Ritchie, he built an hotel where no alcohol was served. Richardson’s principles were based on the ‘Three P’s’: that there should be no public houses, no pawn shops and, as a result, no need for police. His son, James Nicholson Richardson wrote ‘From far-famed model Bessbrook/Where Bacchus is unknown/Where lack of public-houses/Has starved him off his throne/(Police, pawn-shop, nor publican,/Come nigh this realm of ease/The envious call it in their wrath/“The city of three P’s”)’. Many people were deeply impressed with Richardson’s philanthropic enterprise, but not everyone delighted in the place. After visiting it in 1879, George Bernard Shaw wrote, ‘Bessbrook is a model village where the inhabitants never swear or get drunk and look as if they would like very much to do both.’ 





The decline of linen production from the middle of the last century onwards eventually led to the closure of the Richardson’s mill at Bessbrook in 1970. Around the same time, owing to the onset of the Troubles, the British Army needed a substantial base in South Armagh and therefore requisitioned the buildings, which were converted into a major military base. For a period thereafter, seemingly the former mill became the busiest heliport in Europe, with army helicopters taking off and landing low over Bessbrook every few minutes. Inevitably, the consequent security issues had consequences for the village which suffered economic decline. The army finally left in June 2007, and in recent years work has been undertaken to restore the centre of historic Bessbrook, although more still needs to be done (the former Temperance Hotel, on the corner of Fountain Street and Charlemont Square, for example, sits empty and disconsolate). As for the vast old mill complex, since the departure of the British army, this site has sat largely empty. However, in the autumn of 2022 plans were announced by Farlstone Construction, a company based elsewhere in County Armagh, for a £60 million redevelopment of this area, with the buildings being converted into apartments, offices and retail units. Whether this scheme comes to fruition remains to be seen. 

Two Houses, One Fate


After a recent discussion of the colourful Thomas Steele and the fate of his former home (see Honest Tom « The Irish Aesthete), it is now worth turning attention to a significant, but insufficiently recalled, figure in late 18th century Ireland, Dr Thomas Hussey. Born in 1746, owing to restrictions imposed by the era’s Penal legislation, Hussey was sent to study at the Irish College in Salamanca, after which he joined the Trappist order. However, his obvious intelligence led him to become well-known at the court in Madrid and in due course, now ordained a priest, he was appointed chaplain to the Spanish Embassy in London. There he became acquainted with many of the leading political and intellectual figures of the period, not least Edmund Burke who became a close friend. In 1779, his diplomatic skills led him to be sent by George III’s government on a secret diplomatic mission to Madrid in order to break the Franco-Spanish Alliance in the context of the American War of Independence. Although the effort was unsuccessful, Hussey’s reputation did not suffer any ill effects and he continued to be consulted by the English authorities. Meanwhile, in due course his intellectual abilities were also recognised in 1792 when he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Subsequently, the government sent him on a further mission, attempting to placate disaffected Irish soldiers and militia in Ireland. However, when he heard what they had to say, Hussey adopted their cause, which was not what had been expected. He then played a role in establishing the Irish seminary at Maynooth and became its first president in 1795. Two years later he was appointed Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, holding that position until his death in 1803.




This is Prospect Lodge (above), the house in which Thomas Hussey lived during his years as Bishop of the diocese. On a prominent site in what would once have been open countryside overlooking the city, the building is believed to date from c.1780. Of five-bays and two-storeys, it has a two-bay two-storey section with half-dormer attic to south-east, and two-bay single-storey wing to south-east. Prospect Lodge is notable for being slate-hung on all elevations and, as part of Waterford’s historic architecture, is worthy of preservation even without its associations with Thomas Hussey. Yet at the present it is being left to fall into decay. 




Elsewhere in the south-east of Ireland, this house can be found in Carrick-on-Suir, County Waterford. Dating from c.1760, it is of four-bays and three-storeys over basement, the rear yard dropping down to the quays on the north side of the town. While the building lacks the historical associations of Prospect Lodge, it is similarly slate-hung and therefore represents an important part of Carrick-on-Suir’s heritage. Yet, also like Prospect Lodge, it sits empty and neglected, left to fall into dereliction instead of enhancing the streetscape while realising its potential as a home. Two houses, one fate: and there are thousands more such properties all over Ireland going the same way.  

A Rare Appeal



The Fair Green in Castletown, County Laois is a triangle occupying the centre of the village, dominated by a large and not especially impressive former Christian Brothers novitiate (now a retreat house run by another religious order). However, a number of charming, substantial private residences survive on the north-west and south sides of the green, as shown here. Dating from the second half of the 18th to the early 19th centuries, they are each different – some two-storey, some three, some five bay, some three – one of the largest having (immediately below) featuring a pretty Venetian window on the first floor. Although seemingly many of the original interiors have been altered, and some of the fenestration is not of the best quality, their collective survival gives the village an attractive appearance too rarely found in Ireland.


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 Typical Example


This handsome early 19th century residence stands at one end of Barrack Street in Killala, County Mayo. Of three bays and two storeys, for a period during the pre-Independence period it provided accommodation for members of the Royal Irish Constabulary but of late has stood empty and falling into dereliction, like so many other historic houses in Irish regional towns (further down the same street, there is the shell of what must once have been an equally fine property).

The State of the Place



A recent post here about the neglect of historic buildings in Drogheda, County Louth attracted quite a lot of comment (see: Where The Streets Have No Shame « The Irish Aesthete) but its miserable condition is by no means unique. Everywhere one travels in Ireland, the same circumstances prevail, the core of cities, towns and villages suffering the same shameful neglect, buildings left boarded up (in the midst of a universally acknowledged housing shortage), sites covered in rubbish and graffiti, potential homes and businesses allowed to fall into ruin. This is Kilcock, County Kildare – but it could be anywhere because it represents everywhere. 

Where The Streets Have No Shame


Last January Drogheda, County Louth was named one of the dirtiest towns in Ireland in the annual Irish Business Against Litter report – placed 39 out of 40 locations surveyed, only Dublin’s north inner city was judged to be even filthier. Although obviously not an achievement worth celebrating, this information will come as no surprise to anyone who has been visiting Drogheda over recent years and watched the place sink further and further into degradation. In 1993, the Pevsner Guide to this part of the country, written by Alistair Rowan and Christine Casey, observed that ‘As is too often the case, the 20th century has not been kind to Drogheda. However, the problems of the town lie not so much in the lack of quality in its new architecture as in the neglect and lack of concern for its historic buildings.’ That was almost 30 years ago: the situation has only grown worse over the intervening decades. 






In contrast to its shameful present, Drogheda has a proud past: at the end of the 17th century, one visitor thought it a handsome, clean town ‘and the best I have seen in Ireland.’ Its location at the final bridging point on the river Boyne three miles before it joins the Irish Sea (the name Drogheda derives from Droichead Átha, meaning Bridge of the Ford) indicates strategic importance and from the Viking period onwards there was an important settlement here. In the Middle Ages, the Archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, lived here rather than in his titular seat, and six national parliaments were convened in the town between 1441 and 1494. A terrible disaster befell Drogheda in 1649 when it was captured and ransacked by members of Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army, but by the beginning of the following century it was once again booming and many of the town’s finest buildings were erected over the next 100 years. Commercial decline had already begun by the middle of the 19th century. When Thackeray visited in 1842, he wrote of buildings on the main street being ‘in a half state of ruin and battered shutters closed many of the windows where formerly had been “emporiums”, “repositories” and other grandly-titled abodes of small commerce.’ He also described the town as dirty, a term still appropriate 180 years later. Over the past century, with improved transport links, not just the railway but even more the car, Drogheda’s relative proximity to Dublin, which is less than 35 miles away, has only added to its problems. 






There are many reasons why Drogheda should no longer enjoy the same prosperity as was once the case, but no reason whatsoever why the town should have been allowed to become such a sad, neglected, shabby mess. Everywhere one turns, there are empty buildings falling into ruin, historic properties which, in other countries, would be repaired and put back into use. Instead, no apparent effort has been made to preserve Drogheda’s outstanding architectural heritage. What could, for example, be a significant tourist destination – and therefore a source of revenue for the local community – is being wilfully ignored. At the moment, no visitor coming to Ireland could be directed to Drogheda, except to see how not to care for the urban environment. The local authority, Louth County Council, seems supremely indifferent to the condition of the town, showing absolutely no sense of pride in what should be one of the region’s finest assets. If there’s no sense of pride, there’s clearly no sense of shame either. Otherwise this situation would not be allowed to continue. Further words are redundant: the pictures shown today are sufficiently eloquent. Welcome to Drogheda, where the streets have no shame. 

An Act of Philanthropy



The model village of Talbot’s Inch stands above the river Nore to the immediate north of Kilkenny city. The extraordinary development was devised and created by Ellen, dowager Countess of Desart (née Bischoffsheim) who, having failed in efforts to retain possession of her late husband’s home (the now-demolished Desart Court) in 1907 built a new house for herself here called Aut Even (from the Irish áit aoibhinn meaning ‘beautiful place’). The architect responsible was William Alphonsus Scott, his work much inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement, and one suspects especially that of Voysey. Lady Desart had already employed him to design the 26 houses that comprise Talbot’s Inch, intended to house workers from the Greenvale Woollen Mills and the Kilkenny Woodworkers’ Company, both located across the Nore; in this, she was inspired by her brother-in-law, the Hon Captain Otway Cuffe, President of the local branch of the Gaelic League. Occupying two sides of a communal green and comprising either semi-detached pairs or short terraces, none of the buildings is identical but they share many characteristics, such as dormer attic windows set in steeply pitched sprocketed roofs, the use of decorative brickwork panels and chevron-detailed chimneystacks. Not far away – see below – is Tigh-na-Cairde (now called Oak Lodge) also by Scott and completed in 1907 for the Woollen Mills manager. Although there have been a few interventions on the site (and there is currently a planning application for more houses to be constructed at one end of the green), Talbot’s Inch survives reasonably intact, a monument to Ellen Desart’s philanthropy: she would later go on to become a Senator in the first Seanad Éireann, (the first Jewish person to do so)  and would also succeed Captain Cuffe as president of the Kilkenny branch of the Gaelic League.


A Stroll along the Mall



Today the word ‘mall’ is usually applied to shopping centres with pretensions to grandeur, but historically malls were outdoor urban spaces in which the local population would stroll and socialise. No doubt originally The Mall in Wicklow town was intended to perform just such a function. Situated on ground steeply rising above the point where the Vartry river flows into the Irish Sea ,and therefore overlooking the harbour, The Mall is separated from Main Street immediately below by a retaining wall built of local granite and dating from c.1875. A double flight of steps links the two areas and to go from one to the other pedestrians pass under a wrought-iron arch centred on a glazed lantern. There ends whatever charm The Mall has today, since much of it is now a muddle of traffic congestion and neglected buildings, not least the former Bayview Hotel which occupies a particularly prominent spot. Originally constructed as a private residence around 1810 and called Bellevue, the property became a library in 1925 and later an hotel. Before the economic recession, there had been plans that it form part of a shopping centre complex but this never happened and it has been in decline since then. A year ago, the building, along with its neighbours, was sold for €903,000. One must hope the new owners have plans to improve the prospects not just of this site but the entire area. A stroll along The Mall ought to be a pleasure.