Category Archives: Monaghan

Signs of Former Greatness



Scattered around the market town of Clones, County Monaghan is evidence that this was once an important religious centre. A monastery was founded here in the first half of the sixth century by Saint Tigernach (d.549) which in due course became a substantial establishment, the abbots of which are mentioned several times in the Annals of the Four Masters. A ruined 12th century church (locally known as the Wee Abbey) and a High Cross in the town centre are two of the remains from this earlier history, as is a Round Tower found set into the walls of an oval graveyard on the outskirts of Clones. Some 75 feet high, it has lost its cone roof but retains the doorway some distance above ground, as well as a number of small window openings on different sides. Around the tower are tombstones of varying dates, some of them going back to the 18th century.



The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

Death of a Salesman



Until relatively recently, across Ireland every country town would have had an hotel. It was the place where local weddings and similar social gatherings might be held, as well serving as a venue for business meetings, gatherings of societies like the Rotary or Lions Clubs, and occasional clandestine encounters. But what helped to sustain these hotels on a day-to-day basis, what kept the bar humming in the evening, filled bedrooms at night and ensured breakfast would be served in the morning were members of a now-vanished breed: the commercial traveller. 





Commercial travellers, otherwise known as travelling salesmen, were once a common sight throughout the country. Almost incessantly on the road, they moved from one urban centre to another, seeking to persuade individuals or retail outlets to buy the products or services of the company they represented. Their numbers were sufficiently great for the Irish Commercial Travellers’ Federation to be founded in Cork in 1919; in the middle of the last century, this body was sufficiently important to have its own publication, The Traveller.
While there were a handful of products being offered for sale by women – the Avon Lady who sold cosmetics and the like – commercial travellers were overwhelmingly male, and the profession gained a reputation for being somewhat libidinous: all those men on their own with an hotel bedroom at their disposal. Timothy Lea’s saucy Confessions of a Travelling Salesman was published in 1973, and the same year saw the release of the rather lame film, Secrets of a Door-to-Door Salesman. However, the end was soon nigh for commercial travellers: tellingly, in 1981, the Irish Commercial Travellers’ Federation was absorbed into the Sales, Marketing & Administrative Union of Ireland. Various factors have been given for the decline and eventual disappearance of a once-widespread occupation. Improvements in communication and transportation made the traditional role of a travelling salesman who physically visited customers over long periods less necessary for mainstream businesses. More recently, computers, and the internet have created direct online ordering systems, thereby allowing retailers to view and order stock directly from manufacturers, and making the role of the commercial traveller redundant. In addition, the rise of large retail chains has led to a corresponding reduction in the number of independent outlets that once relied on travellers. All of which hastened the demise of the travelling salesman. 





A recent visit to two towns less than six miles apart, one on either side of the border, both of which have hotels which were once thriving but which are now empty and in poor condition. In Clones, County Monaghan, the former Lennard Arms which stands in a prominent position at the junction of MacCurtain and Analore Streets and with a bold double canted bay fronted façade facing The Diamond, dates back to 1860. According to the National Built Heritage Service, the building ‘has been an institution in Clones since it commenced trading and endures as an important landmark in the town.’ That was written in 2011, and since then the hotel has ceased trading and fallen into its present sad state. Meanwhile, over in Newtownbutler the handsome Lanesborough Arms Hotel on Main Street first opened for business in 1820 and serves as testament to the prosperity of the town at the time. Of five bays and three storeys with a free-standing Tuscan porch, it closed for business in 2004 (the interior of the adjacent pub was removed and reinstalled in the Ulster American Folk Park, County Tyrone). A fire believed to have been started deliberately caused major damage to the building in 2016 and its condition has only grown worse since then.
The Lennard and Lanesborough Arms Hotels were both the kind of premises which have once provided hospitality to commercial travellers, and one wonders whether the disappearance of this formerly reliable class of guest was a factor in their closure. Each town suffers from the blight of dereliction (see top pictures for Clones and bottom ones for Newtownbutler), providing further evidence that once-thriving urban centres in all parts of Ireland have experienced serious decline across recent decades. With the loss of their clientele, do these once-thriving hotels have a future? In Clones, plans have been announced by the local authority to renovate the Lennard Arms as a heritage centre. Alas, no such opportunities in Newtownbutler for the Lanesborough Arms which, together with many of its neighbours along Main Street, continues to stand empty and neglected.



The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

Shocking Deterioration




The pictures above show a terrace of former almshouses in Rockcorry, County Monaghan in August 2013. The pictures below show the same terrace in August 2025: the deterioration in their condition over the past 12 years is shocking. A stone plaque on the pediment of the two end houses advises that the terrace was ‘built by Jos. Griffiths for destitute widows A.D. 1847.’ Of two storeys and three bays, there are four such houses, sturdily constructed of stone with brick trim around the doors and windows. They are mentioned several times in a document commissioned by the local authority which appeared two years ago, Rockcorry Vision Plan 2030, with references made to ‘support community and private development of vacant and derelict residential properties for adaptation and re-use as new homes’ or the possibility of them being converted to tourist accommodation. Meanwhile, they continue to deteriorate…




The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

A Failed Venture



The former lock-keeper’s house outside Smithborough, County Monaghan. Dating from the mid-1830s, it was constructed by the Ulster Canal Company established in the previous decade to link Lough Neagh to Lough Erne. The canal opened in 1842 but proved a failure, since in an effort to economise the company created too narrow locks and, in places, a route too narrow to permit boats to pass. Shortage of water was also a problem, as was competition by the expanding network of railway lines. By 1851 the company was already in financial difficulty and the canal was taken over by the Board of Works. However, the problems proved insuperable and by the early 20th century the canal had become derelict. This little house now sits surrounded by dry land (as does and adjacent former lock), a souvenir of a failed venture.



The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

Bath Time


The recent death of the conscientiously eccentric 7th Marquess of Bath serves as a reminder that for a long time his family, the Thynnes, owned a large estate in County Monaghan, including the east side of Carrickmacross. Evidence of their former presence can be found in the town, such as here on what is now called St Joseph’s Terrace but was originally known as Weymouth Cottages (Viscount Weymouth being one of the Thynnes’ titles). Single storied, with dormer attics, they are made from the local limestone with curious, intermittent insertions of sandstone. Beneath the bargeboard and above each entrance is a small plaque featuring a marquess’s coronet and the letter B (for Bath) as well as the date 1870 to advise when the buildings were constructed.


*New video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRPj6b6KCss&t=22s

Faith of our Fathers


‘St Patrick’s, Ardragh, County Monaghan – This church, or rather part of a church, has just been consecrated and has been built by Mr. E.P. Shirley from Messrs. Slater and Carpenter’s designs. It is a simple oblong building, with an apsidal sanctuary opening out of it by an arch at the east end. The whole is to form the chancel of a much larger church, but for the present it will be used for the parishioners. It is four bays in length, and has lancets moulded on the inside. The chancel arch is built up in the west wall, and encloses a traceried rose-window, with a temporary door and porch under. The roof is of timber, with arched principals. The sanctuary is apsidal, with a moulded lancet in each side. The roof is of solid stone, arched on the inside and weathered on the outside.’ (The Builder, 9th January 1869).




St Patrick’s, Ardragh was built on the initiative of Evelyn Philip Shirley, owner of the Lough Fea estate some six miles to the south-west of the church. It has been proposed that the building was, at least in part, intended as a mortuary chapel for the family, since a vault was placed beneath the sanctuary but this was more likely due to the fact that the ground outside drops steeply at this point. Just as significantly, neither the building’s first patron, nor any of his descendants, have been buried in the church, making the argument for the building being their mortuary chapel even less likely. On the other hand, it does appear that the initial plan was for a much larger church, of which the present one would have served only as chancel and choir, but the reality of attendance numbers at Church of Ireland services probably put paid to that idea. In any case, a foundation stone was laid here in November 1865 and work on the site began the following May, the church being consecrated in October 1868. Designed by London architect William Slater (who specialised in such religious buildings), it is situated amid a grove of beech trees on a rise, so that the church can be seen from some distance. The exterior takes the form of a four-bay gabled hall with a bellcote above the western gable front and a polygonal apse at the east end with an ashlar roof, which, as has been often noted, looks like a miniature baptistery. The four drop arched lancets of the nave are framed between off-set buttresses which continue around the chancel. While locally-quaried limestone was used for the main body of the building, a pinkish sandstone was employed for decorative features such as the window surrounds (linked by bands in the same material) and quoins on the buttresses and little entrance porch. In addition to the bellcote, the roofline also carries a slender round chimneystack in the north-west corner.



The interior of St Patrick’s reflects the simplicity of its exterior, although a key feature has since been lost. As originally decorated, the walls of the apse were lined in blue and red alabaster mined from a quarry on the Shirley estate and worked by the Dublin firm of Sibthorpe & Son; this has since been removed owing to incursion of damp. Alabaster from the same quarry can still be seen in the shafts of the columns of the chancel arch. These terminate in carved capitals of stone from Lough Fea, also used for the surrounds of the windows and western door. The windows throughout the church were made by the London firm of Clayton & Bell, those on the north and south sides simply decorated with shamrocks, roses and acorns, those in the chancel showing Christ as the Good Shepherd, the True Vine and the Light of the World, while the small rose window at the west end contains scenes from the life of St Patrick. The chancel floor carries Minton tiles showing the various Shirley coats of arms. Architect William Slater was also responsible for designing the furnishings, not least the reading desk of blue alabaster, its front carved into multiple panels containing shamrocks. Note too the octagonal baptismal font of Caen stone with more alabaster for inlays and Connemara marble for the shafts. St Patrick’s remains beautifully maintained to the present time, and still in use for services.




Text here…

 

Little Hope


Late last January it was reported that a structural engineer was unable to gain access to the Market House in Castleblayney, County Monaghan, following the collapse of an internal load-bearing wall. The building was declared a public safety risk, a safety cordon erected to prevent access, and then the roof removed in order to avoid further collapse. Occupying a prominent site in the centre of the town, the core of the market house dates from c.1790 when constructed by the 11th Lord Blayney to encourage the local linen trade. In 1856 the building was extended with the addition of a courthouse, the principal front which faces down West Street topped by a polygonal cupola with copper dome.


The property of Monaghan County Council, until the start of the present century Castleblayney Market House was used by the Court Services and also served as the town Library. However, failure to maintain the property meant that in 2003 the local authority had to condemn the market house as unsafe: it has stood empty and steadily more dilapidated ever since, so the collapse of an internal wall earlier this year should come as no surprise. A key building in Castleblayney, the market house is – naturally – listed by the county council, its owners, for protection. That protection does not seem to be forthcoming.

No Hope



The sad remains of Hope Castle, County Monaghan. Built on the edge of Castleblayney, the house – like the town – owes its existence to the Blayney family who settled here at the start of the 17th century. Initially they lived in a castle built by Sir Edward Blayney, created first Baron Blayney in 1721 but at the end of the 18th century his descendant, the 11th Lord Blayney commissioned a new house designed by Dublin-born Robert Woodgate who for several years had worked in London for Sir John Soane. In 1853 the 12th Lord Blayney sold the estate to the rich Henry Thomas Hope; he enlarged and remodelled the building in what has been called ‘a frivolous kind of Italianate classicism.’ Occupied by Queen Victoria’s son the Duke of Connaught for several years at the start of the last century when he served Commander of the Forces in Ireland, Hope Castle was sold in 1928 and served as a military barracks and then a county hospital before being occupied until the mid-1970s by Franciscan nuns. It was then acquired by the local county council, which leased it to an hotelier who was permitted to strip out all of Woodgate’s interiors. In 2010 the building was badly damaged by arsonists and has remained in a sorry state ever since.


School’s Out – Again


Opened in 1902, Fortview National School in Clones, County Monaghan was designed by Thomas Elliott from adjacent County Fermanagh. By now almost seventy, Elliott had a long career behind him during which he was responsible for many Orange Halls and Presbyterian churches in West Ulster. The severity of these buildings is reflected in the Clones school, which looks more like a place of worship than a place of education, and can scarcely have inspired the minds of young children arriving for classes.



Constructed of craggy limestone Fortview National School’s austere façade is only slightly relieved by a tower on one side and a gabled porch on the other. A testimony to its solid construction is the fact that the building ceased to be in use ten years ago, but still stands strong. Nevertheless, a shame that it now serves no purpose since water ingress is beginning to be evident, and if left untreated this will lead to long-term damage.