Category Archives: Ruins

A Fair Stone Howse


Thought to have been born in Paisley, Scotland around 1577, Sir George Hamilton was a younger son of Claud Hamilton, first Lord Paisley. Following the accession of James VI to the English throne (as James I) in 1603, and the Flight of the Earls from Ulster four years later, Sir George and his older siblings were granted lands in that part of Ireland. By 1611, having received some 12,400 statute acres, he had moved to this country where he and was living with his family in the Strabane area of County Tyrone part of which, lying to the east of a 15th century former O’Neill tower house on Island MacHugh in Lough Catherine, was called Derrywoone. Unlike many of his fellow Scots Sir George was a staunch Roman Catholic, described in 1622 as “an arch-papist and a great patron of them.’ Following the death of his first wife Isobel Leslie, in 1630 Hamilton married Lady Mary Butler, a daughter of the 11th Earl of Ormond. When her father had difficulty paying the agreed dowry of £1,800, he granted his new son-in-law the manor, castle, town, and lands of Roscrea, County Tipperary for 21 years (for more on the castle, see A Dominant Presence « The Irish Aesthete). In 1646, during the Confederate Wars, Roscrea was attacked and captured by Owen Roe O’Neill, but it is unclear whether Hamilton was still alive at this date or had already died. In part the confusion arises because one of his nephews, likewise Sir George Hamilton and likewise married to another Lady Mary Butler, then lived not far away in Nenagh, County Tipperary. The latter Sir George, incidentally, was father of Anthony Hamilton, author of the famous Mémoires du Comte de Grammont, first published in 1713. 





Now deep in woodland but presumably once with clear views over Lough Catherine to the immediate west, Derrywoone Castle is believed to have been built for Sir George Hamilton around 1619; work there was almost complete three years later when it was recorded as being a  ‘fair stone howse, 4 stories high, which is almost finished, and a bawne of stone and lyme, 90 foot long, 70 foot broad and 14 foot high. The house takes up almost the full bawne. As soon as it is finished, he [Hamilton] intends to dwell there himself.’ The same report suggests that in excess of 80 families may have been settled in the vicinity of the castle, although an archaeological survey in 2013 revealed no evidence of houses here. More a fortified house than a castle, Derrywoone was designed as an L-shaped residence with large window openings on all sides and a fine gable end to the south. Stylistically, the castle reveals the Hamiltons’ Lowland-Scottish origins, not least thanks to a  finely carved corbelled out-staircase on the south-west side; a large round tower also survives on the north-east. 





Little information about the later history of Derrywoone seems to be available. Since Sir George moved to Roscrea following his second marriage and seems to have been based there, the castle may have stood empty or occupied by whoever was responsible for managing his property in this part of the country. He had one surviving son, James, who died unmarried in 1659. In the Down Survey for Tyrone, James Hamilton is described as ‘James Hamilton of Roskre Esqr. a minor Sone to Sr George Hamillton ye elder of Roskrea knight deceased who was a Scottish papist.’ Indeed, many of the Hamiltons, not just James’s cousin Anthony, remained both Roman Catholic and loyal to the Stuarts, going into exile in France and elsewhere in the late 17th century. However, eventually one of the family, James Hamilton, sixth Earl of Abercorn and a great-nephew of Sir George, conformed to the Established Church and inherited the Ulster estates. His descendants have lived there ever since, in the 18th century moving to a new residence. Located to the south of Derrywoone, it is called Baronscourt. 


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

How the Mighty have Fallen


‘Sir Lucas Dillon, father of the first Earl of Roscommon, and son of Sir Robert Dillon, who was Attorney-General to Henry VIII, built the castle and church of Moymett, after having received the grants of the Abbey of the Virgin Mary at Trim, and the townlands of Ladyrath, Grange of Trim, Cannonstown and Rathnally, in the year 1567.’
From ‘A Continuation of Notes on Sepia Sketches of Various Antiquities presented to the Library of the Royal Irish Academy’ by George V Du Noyer, in Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, Vol. VII, 1862.





The tomb of Sir Lucas Dillon (c.1530-1593) and his first wife Jane Bathe in Newtown Trim, County Meath has featured here before (see Former Greatness « The Irish Aesthete). As mentioned above, he was the eldest son of Sir Robert Dillon, and member of a Norman family which had settled in Ireland in the 12th century and thereafter prospered. A Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas, Sir Robert, despite being Roman Catholic, assisted in the English crown in the dissolution of monasteries in Ireland and in 1537 was granted a 21-year lease of the demesne of St Peter’s at in Newtown Trim and three years later was allowed to buy the property (in 1546 he also purchased the Carmelite monastery at Athcarne, Co. Meath). Like his father, Lucas Dillon became a lawyer and in 1565 was appointed Solicitor General for Ireland. He would later become Attorney General, a member of the Irish Parliament, Chief Baron of the Exchequer (succeeding his late father-in-law), and then a member of the Irish Privy Council. During this period, he acquired the land at Moymet, some four miles north-west of Newtown Trim which he also owned. Again like his father, he acted in the service of the English government: in Terry Clavin’s entry in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, he notes that Dillon ‘believed that the best means of pacifying Ireland was by the extension of the common law to all corners of the island.’ He was especially close to Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy of Ireland 1565-71 and again 1575-78 and accompanied the latter on his tours of Ireland; Sidney knighted Dillon in 1575. Inevitably as he grew older, the number of Dillon’s enemies increased – he often faced charges of corruption – but he managed to hold on to his offices until he died in 1593. His eldest son James would become first Earl of Roscommon, despite remaining Roman Catholic, although (although subsequent generations conformed to the Established Church).





In their guide to North Leinster, Professors Casey and Rowan described the buildings at Moymet as ‘a rare microcosm of late medieval life in Ireland.’ The ensemble begins with a substantial three-storey gatehouse, comprising an entrance archway, once vaulted, with a number of rooms above. On the west side, a narrow vaulted chamber has a spiral staircase in one corner giving access to the upper level. A short distance south of this lie the remains of the castle which would have served as the Dillons’ residence. Although now in poor condition, this was originally of four storeys, presumably with a typical vaulted chamber on the ground floor (none of the interior divisions survive). Several large window and chimney openings survive, as well as a garderobe in the south-east corner of the structure. There is also, seemingly a much-worn sheela-na-gig figure on the east wall, but the presence of an excessively inquisitive herd of cattle prevented the Irish Aesthete from seeing this. A long, low range to the immediate west probably acted as a service block. Meanwhile, further west of the castle stands a similarly ruined church, once dedicated to St Brigid. Like the other buildings on this site, it is thought to have been built, or perhaps rebuilt by Sir Luke Dillon since the church is in two parts, the nave wider than the chancel and lit by slender windows with trefoils carved into the spandrels, each then capped with hood moulding.  An internal staircase in the north-east corner of the nave formerly gave access to the rood-loft, where most likely a priest lived. At the east end, the chancel closes in a large rectangular window divided into three with ogee arches and, once more, a hood moulding over the whole. The church appears to have been damaged during the Confederate Wars of the 1640s and then abandoned, as were the nearby castle and its associated structures, leaving the whole to fall into decay.


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

The Fate of Carrigafoyle Castle


‘Carrick and Carrig are the names of nearly seventy townlands, villages and towns, and form the beginning of about 555 others; craig and creag are represented by the various forms Crag, Craig, Creg, &c., and these constitute or begin about 250 names; they mean primarily a rock, but they are sometimes applied to rocky island.
Carrigafoyle, an island in the Shannon, near Ballylongford, Kerry, with the remains of Carrigafoyle castle near the shore, the chief seat of the O’Conors Kerry, is called in the annals, Carraig-an-phoill, the rock of the hole; and it took its name from a deep hole in the river immediately under the castle.’
From The Origin and History of Irish Names of Places by P.W. Joyce (1869)





‘Sir William Pelham and the earl of Ormond set out early this year [1580] on a fresh campaign in Desmond’s territory; the first marching first to Limerick in the beginning of February, and the latter to Cork, and both forming a junction at the foot of Slieve Mis, near Tralee. They spared neither age nor sex in their march, and, owing to the state of desolation to which the country had been reduced, suffered not a little inconvenience themselves for want of provisions. They then marched northwards to destroy the castles still garrisoned by Desmond’s men, and first laid siege to the strong castle of Carrigafoyle (Carrig-an-phuill) situated in an islet in the Shannon, on the coast of Kerry. The Four Masters say that Pelham landed some heavy ordnance from Sir William Winter’s fleet, which arrived on the Irish coast about this time, and battered a portion of the castle, crushing some of the warders beneath the ruins; but other annalists make no mention of cannon landed from the ships.’
From The History of Ireland, Ancient and Modern by Martin Haverty (1867)





‘For the rebels it was a losing game all through. Pelham and Ormond took Desmond’s strongholds one by one. Carrigafoyle Castle on the south shore of the Shannon was his strongest fortress. It was valiantly defended by fifty Irishmen and nineteen Spaniards, commanded by Count Julio an Italian engineer: but after being by cannon until a breach was made, it was taken by storm about the 27th March. Without delay the whole garrison, including Julio with six Spaniards and some women, were hanged or put to the sword…A few days after the capture of this fortress the garrisons of some others of Desmond’s castles, including Askeaton, abandoned them, terrified by the fate of Carrigafoyle.’
From A Short History of Ireland, from the Earliest Times to 1608 by P.W. Joyce (1893)


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

Seventy Years Ago…


The charming cathedral dedicated to St Brendan in Clonfert, County Galway has featured here before (see The Traveller’s Rest « The Irish Aesthete). And because Clonfert was, until the 1833, a separate diocese in the Church of Ireland (it remains so in the Roman Catholic church), there was also an episcopal palace, now alas a sad ruin. Standing a short distance to the north of the cathedral, the oldest part of this building is thought to date back to the late 16th or early 17th century, possibly constructed during the episcopacy of Stephen Kirwan (bishop of Clonfert 1682-1701) who served as a justice and commissioner for the province of Connaught. There is no doubt that Clonfert, today a sleepy hamlet, was then judged a place of some importance since in 1579, Elizabeth I, in her Orders to be observed by Sir Nicholas Maltby for the better government of the province of Connaught’ declared ‘We are desirous that a college should be erected in the nature of an university in some convenient place in Ireland for instructing and education of youth in lerninge. And We conceive the Town of Clonfert within the province of Connaught to be aptlie seated both for helth and comodity of the ryver of Shenen running by it and because it is also neere to the midle of the realme, whereby all men may, with small travel send their children thither.’ The queen may have heard that during a much earlier period, Clonfert had been a great seat of learning, or perhaps it was just that the cathedral and its ancillary buildings were located in a central location and, as she observed, close to the river Shannon, then a major means of travel through Ireland. However, the idea of establishing a college here never happened, and it was only in 1592 that the country’s first university was founded in Dublin.





As mentioned, while parts of the former bishop’s palace in Clonfert may go back to the late 16th century, a more substantial portion of the building dates from c.1635, during the episcopacy of Robert Dawson, who had become Bishop of the newly-united dioceses of Clonfert and Kilmacduagh in 1627 and would hold that position until his death in 1643 (incidentally, he was also the forebear of a family that would go on to become great landowners and developers in Ireland, not least his great-grandson Joshua Dawson who was responsible for laying out Dawson Street in Dublin and building what is now the Mansion House). Oak beams and roof joists in the palace have been dated to around this period, although further changes and additions were made at some time in the 18th century, when a Venetian window was inserted.
In his memoirs, published in 1805, the playwright Richard Cumberland wrote about the palace in Clonfert, which he knew well since his father Denison Cumberland had lived there while bishop of the diocese (1763-1772). ‘This humble residence,’ he recalled, ‘was not devoid of comfort and convenience, for it contained some tolerable lodging rooms, and was capacious enough to receive me and mine without straitening the family. A garden of seven acres, well planted and disposed into pleasant walks, kept in the neatest order, was attached to the house, and at the extremity of a broad gravel walk in front stood the cathedral.’ Cumberland also remembered how, while staying with his father on one occasion, he used ‘a little closet at the back of the palace, as it was called, unfurnished and out of use, with no other prospect from my single window but that of a turf-stack’, as a room in which to begin writing what would prove to be his most successful stage work, the comedy The West-Indian (first performed at London’s Drury Lane Theatre in 1771). However, Clonfert was always one of the poorest episcopacies in the country and as a result successive bishops – many of whom managed to have themselves transferred to richer dioceses after only a short period of time – were disinclined to make improvements to their residence. For this reason, it retained much of its 17th century character, being long and low, of eight bays and two storeys with dormer windows. The surrounding demesne also underwent relatively few changes. There survives, for example, a yew walk running south-west of the palace, which may be even older, but certainly has the character of 17th century baroque garden design. Like the building to which it leads, the yew walk is now sadly neglected.




Clonfert Palace remained home to successive Church of Ireland bishops until 1834 when, following the creation of a new united diocese of Killaloe and Clonfert, it became surplus to requirements and was sold to John Eyre Trench. In 1947 his descendants sold the building to the Blake-Kelly family who, four years later, sold it to the next owners who would be the last people to live in the former palace. By then the place was in poor condition and required extensive renovation, along with the installation of electricity, new bathrooms and so forth before it could be occupied; the new chatelaine drove over from her temporary residence in Co Tipperary to oversee this work. Finally, once complete, in February 1952 she and her family arrived, along with a retinue that included housekeeper, cook, maid and chauffeur, as well as a gardener to maintain the grounds. A local newspaper, the Westmeath Independent, reported that ‘‘Sir Oswald and Lady Mosley, who have a large staff, are charmed with Ireland, its people, the tempo of its life and its scenery.’ The same publication also briefly noted that ‘Sir Oswald was the former leader of a political movement in England.’ The ‘political movement’ had, of course, been the British Union of Fascists (later the British Union) and both Sir Oswald and his wife, the former Diana Mitford, had been interned for a number of years during the second World War by the British government, and had found themselves shunned in the aftermath of their release. Ireland had several advantages, not least the fact that two of Diana Mosley’s sisters already owned properties in the country, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire at Lismore Castle, County Waterford and Pamela Jackson at Tullamaine Castle, County Tipperary. Country houses here were going cheap, and there were still sufficient other landed families still about to make life agreeable to the newly-arrived. For the next two years, the Mosleys remained contentedly at Clonfert, attracting little attention although they were discreetly observed by both the Irish and British governments. Such might have remained the case, had not disaster struck exactly 70 years ago, in early December 1954. At the time, Diana Mosley was in London, but her husband and their two children were in County Galway when fire broke out, seemingly caused by an old beam inside the chimney of the maids’ sitting room. The blaze spread quickly, so fast indeed that according to a report in the following day’s Irish Times, a French maid, Mademoiselle Cerrecoundo, who had run upstairs to rescue some clothes, became trapped in the building. Sir Oswald, his son Alexander and the chauffeur, Monsieur Thevenon, held a blanket beneath one of the windows and the maid leapt to her safety, with only minor injuries to her back and hand. Alas, the old palace was not so lucky and while a handful of rooms and their contents were saved, most of the building was lost as it took an hour and a half for fire brigades to reach Clonfert. The following day, hurricane-force winds and torrential rain ripped across the entire country, compounding the damage done to the house and leaving it a sorry wreck. In 1955 the Mosleys moved to Ileclash, a Georgian overlooking the river Blackwater in County Cork where they lived intermittently until 1963 when the couple moved to France. As for Clonfert Palace, despite being described on www.buildingsofireland.com in 2009 as being of national significance, it was left to moulder into its present advanced state of decay. What could have been saved as a rare example of late 16th/early 17th century Irish domestic architecture has been lost.


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by

Undaunted and Vigorous Still


‘Dunloe Castle stands on a bold promontory overlooking the river near the bridge. It has a worn, but wild and hardy look about it, as if it had suffered much at the hand of time, but remained undaunted and vigorous still. The view from the castle is most exquisite, and the row down the river will be found to be not the least interesting portion of the excursion…The castle has been kept in good repair by its various proprietors. Its position was, in former days, a strong one; and it was doubtless erected for the purpose of commanding the river and the pass into the mountains. In the time of Henry VIII and Elizabeth, it frequently stood the brunt of warfare; and in 1641 it was besieged and nearly demolished by the Parliamentary forces under Ludlow.’
From The Lakes of Killarney by Robert Michael Ballantyne (1865)




‘Let no one leave Killarney without rowing a mile or two down the Laune and visiting Dunloe Castle by water; – as we did in the “gloaming” of a summer evening, when the lake was calm – the grey fly floating on its surface, and the salmon and trout springing from the waters…but here stands the Castle on its bold promontory above the river – a firm, fearless looking keep, approached by a steep hill-road, recalling both by its shape and situation, one of the Rhine towers. Land, by all means and, as it is permitted, ascend; and passing through a turngate, walk along the terrace, which commands a view of the magnificent slopes, which a little pains might easily convert into hanging gardens. The greater part of the kitchen-offices were burnt some years ago, so that the dwelling-castle has a gaunt and isolated appearance, in accordance with the wild mountain scenery.’
From A Week in Killarney by Mr and Mrs S.C. Hall (1843)




‘As we drive along, behold beneath us a view of Dunloe Castle, the remains of an old fortress, that, like Ross Castle, was used by the turbulent chiefs of the country as a place of strength and security. It suffered many vicissitudes and, at last, during the reign of Oliver Cromwell, was partly demolished by bombardment. It has been, by some late repairs, converted into a very romantic residence by the late Major Mahoney, whose politeness and attention every stranger was sure to experience. There is an embattled walk around the top, from which an extensive view of the Lake and the surrounding mountains may be taken, if the stranger deem it of sufficient importance to pause for it.’
From A New Guide to the Scenery of Killarney by D.E. Fitzpatrick (1845)


The Irish Aesthete is generously supported by 

A Fine Specimen


Handsomely set against a background of woodland, the 16th century tower house at Castlegrove, County Galway is known as both Feartagar Castle and Jennings Castle, the latter name derived from a family believed to have lived there for a period. The building is thought to have been constructed by the de Burgos (otherwise Burkes) who controlled much of the land in this part of the country, but the Jennings may indeed have been responsible, since the two families were related to each other. The surname Jennings originally McSeonins, or sons of John (de Burgo), which was first anglicised to Jonine and then to Jennings, sometimes spelled Jenings.




The castle comprises a rectangular, five-storey tower measuring some 12 by 10 metres. Both the eastern and west roof gables survive, as do chimney stacks on either end as well as on the northern side. At the top of each of the four corners are well-preserved curved bartizans, while above the pointed arch doorway on the eastern wall is a further machicolation. At various levels on every side are a series of arrow slits as well as a number of mullion windows with hood mouldings. Although apparently unoccupied since the mid-17th century, the building is in an excellent state of repair, certainly when compared with many other tower houses found elsewhere around the country. 




The castle is believed to have remained in the hands of the de Burgo or Jennings family until the 1650s when, like so many other such properties, it was taken from the owners by the Cromwellian government in the aftermath of the Confederate Wars. It was then granted to the Blakes, members of another well-known County Galway family who had likewise been displaced from their original land holdings. Successive generations of Blakes lived on the property until the mid-19th century, a new house being erected here in the 1830s. However, in the aftermath of the Great Famine, the entire estate was sold through the Encumbered Estates Court, bought for £15,750 by John Cannon. Following his death, it was sold again to Frederick Lewin and was inherited by his son Thomas before being burnt July 1922, seemingly by anti-Treaty forces. The remains are now lost in nearby woodland, with the older tower house today in better condition than its successor. 

The Bishop’s Legacy



After Monday’s tale of Riverstown, County Cork, here are the scant remains of another, slightly earlier property built by another member of the same family. In 1710 Dr Peter Browne, former Provost of Trinity College Dublin, was appointed Church of Ireland Bishop of the United Dioceses of Cork and Ross. Ten years later, he acquired some 118 acres of land to the immediate south-east of the city, with the intention of constructing there ‘a good, substantial and convenient dwelling house and a chapel thereunto adjoining together with suitable offices.’ Named Bishopstown and finished in 1726 at a cost of more than £2,000, he created this property and surrounding demesne to serve as “a fit and convenient residence for himself and his successors, the bishops of Cork and Ross”.  The adjacent chapel was consecrated in 1730. Alas, his successors failed to appreciate this legacy and already by 1792 the house at Bishopstown was described as being ‘in a state of decay and totally unfit for the residence of the bishop.’ In the early 1830s the place was leased to a farmer and then in 1878 the Ecclesiastical Commissioners sold the land and buildings. It passed through various hands before being bought by Cork Corporation about half a century ago. Many of the buildings were then in a better condition than is now the case (and some of them have been demolished over the intervening years). What remains is a former farmhouse incorporating an early 18th century limestone doorcase retrieved from the since-lost mansion, and the skeletal remains of the chapel (see below). In the immediate vicinity, jostling for attention with a children’s playground, are a pair of small, three-arched bridges and fragments of a circular battlemented shell house, thought perhaps to have been built during the episcopacy of Robert Clayton, the bishop here 1735-45. Bishopstown today is a heavily-developed suburb of Cork city.


Recalling Lost Houses


In his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland published in 1837, Samuel Lewis wrote of Kilcommon, County Mayo that the old church here, ‘was a chapel of ease, built in 1688 by Archbishop Vesey, who was buried in it, and was made the parish church on the church of Kilcommon becoming ruinous. The present church, which is also in Hollymount, was built in 1816, the late Board of First Fruits having granted a loan of £1000 ; it is a handsome building, with a cast iron spire, and is fitted up with English oak.’ The church, dedicated to King Charles the Martyr, is of cruciform shape and constructed of limestone ashlar; as Lewis noted, rather unusually, the spire is made of cast-iron. Services continued to be held here until November 1959 and the roof removed four years later. Seemingly the doorcase went to Ballintober Abbey and a wall monument remounted in St Mary’s Church, Ballinrobe, both in County Mayo, while the English oak mentioned by Lewis was repurposed in St Paul’s Church, Glenageary, County Dublin and the east window moved to St John’s Church, Lurgan, County Armagh.





In the same entry, Lewis notes that the family vaults of the Binghams, Lords Clanmorris, along with monuments of the Lindsey and Ruttledge families are to be found in the graveyard of King Charles the Martyr. The Binghams had settled in this part of the county in the mid-17th century and there built a house called Newbrook; it was accidentally destroyed in a fire in 1837 and not rebuilt. The monument, to the immediate east of the church, commemorates John Bingham who in 1800 agreed to surrender to the government the two parliamentary seats he controlled in the local borough in exchange for £8,000 and a peerage (for more on this, see Where Turkeys Voted for Christmas « The Irish Aesthete). Visitors to the graveyard note that the tomb is ‘Sacred to the memory of The Right Honorable John Charles Smith de Burgh Bingham, Lord Baron Clanmorris of Newbrook in the County of Mayo, A NOBLEMAN distinguished for the possession of those many eminent virtues which adorn life whether we consider him in the Character of a HUSBAND, FATHER, LANDLORD or FRIEND.’ Another side of the same monument observes that also interred here is Lord Clanmorris’s daughter Caroline Bingham, who died at the age of 15 in April 1821, a month before her father. The Lindsey family settled in the area in 1757 when Thomas Lindsey married Frances Vesey, a granddaughter of John Vesey who had built a house at Hollymount which she duly inherited; the family remained on the estate there until the start of the last century when it was sold to the Congested Districts’ Board. As for the Ruttledges, they lived at Bloomfield, a large house built c.1776. The tomb here commemorates Elizabeth, wife of Robert Ruttledge and daughter of Francis Knox of Rappa Castle, elsewhere in the county. According to the inscription, ‘Her engaging mildness unceasing humanity and warm affection endeared her to all her acquaintance and her uniform and unobtrusive piety together with the unremitting firmness with which she performed all her duties during a life of 56 years afforded them the consoling and confident hope that her soul fled to that place where the spirits of the just are made perfect.’





As already mentioned, the Bingham’s home, Newbrook, was destroyed by fire in 1837 and never rebuilt. Hollymount, originally built by Archbishop Vesey at the start of the 18th century but substantially altered in the 19th, was eventually inherited by Mary Lindsey who in 1885 at the age of 19 married Heremon FitzPatrick; his sister Mary FitzPatrick, better known as Patsy, was one of the great beauties of the late 19th century who at the age of 16 had an affair with the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) before being hastily married to William Cornwallis-West, with whom she had three children. Her brother Heremon, who had assumed the surname Lindsey, remained in possession of Hollymount until 1922 when it was sold; the house is now a ruin. Bloomfield, home of the Ruttledges, was similarly sold in the early 1920s, acquired by the Land Commision and subsequently damaged by fire, it is now a ruin. As for Rappa Castle, childhood home of Elizabeth Ruttledge, it too has become a roofless shell (see Crumbling is not an Instant’s Act « The Irish Aesthete). So this collection of tombs in the graveyard of a derelict church is all that remains to recall a series of once powerful families in County Mayo.

In Praise of Folly




It is unclear when this folly in the grounds of Ballycumber House, County Offaly was constructed. It may date from the mid-18th century when the property’s then-owner Warneford Armstrong carried out alterations to the main building, or perhaps from the early 19th century during the time of his grandson John Warneford Armstrong. The latter travelled extensively abroad and in her book Flights of Fancy: Follies, Families and Demesnes in Offaly, Rachel McKenna describes the folly as ‘a curious structure, circular in plan with soaring buttresses, perhaps reminiscent of great cathedrals seen on distant shores.’ Set on an artificial mound to the north-east of the house, there are tall arched openings between all the stepped and pinnacled buttresses except for one section of solid wall; this originally held a fireplace to warm the interior. Presumably there was a roof, likely domed, but this has entirely gone. The building was restored some years ago by the Follies Trust.