Category Archives: Sligo

A Handsome Ensemble



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


Very Arch



In November 1860 Charles William Cooper assumed by Royal Licence and according to the terms of his late uncle Charles King O’Hara, the latter’s surname thereby ensuring that he might inherit the O’Hara family seat at Annaghmore in County Sligo. Having done so, he then embarked on an extensive building programme, not only refurbishing and enlarging the main house (see High Victoriana « The Irish Aesthete) but also the adjacent stableyard, seen here. The nine bay, two-storey facade has a gable-fronted bays at either end and a single-bay central breakfront with entrance arch above which are the O’Hara arms and a clock set in a roundel. Inside the courtyard, the opposite side of the arch features a stone plaque bearing the date 1864 and Charles William O’Hara’s initials. James Franklin Fuller is thought to have been the architect responsible for work carried out on the house at the time, so he may well have had a hand here too. 


Worth Two Buckets of Gold


Commissioned by Arthur and Sarah Cooper, this is Coopershill, County Sligo. Its design traditionally attributed to amateur architect Francis Bindon, the house is a square block of cut limestone, three storeys over basement and with a particularly handsome Gibbsian doorcase with Venetian window above. Replacing an older property on lower ground and closer to the river Unshin, work on Coopershill began in 1755 and continued for almost 20 years, since it was not completed until 1774. Reputedly Arthur Cooper placed two buckets filled with gold sovereigns on the ground, and this was to be the cost of the property; in the event, more money had to be raised before the work was concluded (Irish landowners of the period almost invariably underestimated the expenditure on a new house).




The interiors of Coopershill indicate rooms were decorated at different periods, probably as further funds became available. There is little plasterwork anywhere, except for a fine frieze in the entrance hall and on the ceiling of the staircase hall to the rear of the building. The latter has delicate Adamesque tendrils scrolling between slim urns, which are also a feature of the deep frieze running below the cornice. As so often in Irish country houses, the first floor bedroom passage is generously wide: it has been proposed that this was to allow women somewhere to walk up and down on the (frequent) days when it was too wet to take exercise outdoors. Whether this is true or not, the wide bedroom landing is a frequent feature of 18th century houses in Ireland. 




Coopershill, County Sligo has remained in the ownership of the same family since first being built in the third quarter of the 18th century; it is now occupied by members of the seventh generation. However, in 1860 Charles William Cooper changed his surname to O’Hara in order to inherit Annaghmore, another estate elsewhere in the same county (see High Victoriana « The Irish Aesthete). For the past half century or so, the O’Haras have been offering accommodation at Coopershill to paying guests.

Greater than Buckingham Palace


In the second volume of his magisterial life of W.B. Yeats, Roy Foster records a visit made by the poet to Markree Castle, County Sligo in late summer 1929. The house was then owned by Bryan Cooper, sometime poet and playwright, and for the previous six years a T.D. in Dáil Éireann. According to Foster, the visit was not altogether a success. Peter Cooper, one of his host’s sons, remembered it as ‘a great nuisance…he was deposited by his long-suffering wife, with instructions not to let him go out in the wet grass in his slippers, and she then disappeared off to Galway with the children.’ Bryan Cooper’s daughter Ursula was, it appears, equally not impressed when Yeats read her a poem he had just written. On the other hand, Bryan Cooper’s wife Lillian was delighted to hear from the poet that he had ‘realised the ambition of my life…as we have always looked on the Coopers and Markree Castle as greater than the Royal Family and Buckingham Palace.’ 





The first of the Coopers to live in Ireland is said to have been an English soldier who married the famous Máire Rua O’Brien after her second husband Conor O’Brien of Leamaneh Castle, County Clare was killed in 1651. Eight years later, Charles II granted Cooper land in County Sligo which had previously belonged to the McDonagh clan; it was based around a fort guarding a pass on the river Unsin, and this remains the site of Markree Castle. At some point in the 18th century, a classical house was constructed here, of three storeys with a five-bay entrance front (with three-bay breakfront) and the garden side with a single bay on either side of a curved bow. However, in 1802 Joshua Cooper commissioned Francis Johnston to transform the building into a castle. At that time Markree was also greatly enlarged, what had been the main facade extended to more than twice its original length and centred on a curved and battlemented tower; this now become – as it remains – the garden front. The entrance was now moved to an adjacent side, to which Johnston added a porch, while elsewhere an office wing was constructed, joined to the rest by a canted link. Further changes were made by Joshua Cooper’s nephew and heir, Edward Joshua Cooper, a keen astronomer who built an observatory in the demesne. Inside the castle, London architect Joseph Gwilt transformed the office wing into a private gothic chapel. Gwilt was also responsible for redecorating the interiors of the rooms overlooking the garden, in what Mark Bence-Jones described as ‘an ornate Louis Quatorze style; with much gilding and well-fed putti in high relief supporting cartouches and trailing swags of flowers and fruits.’ (These spaces are now used as dining rooms). In the mid-1860s, the next generation to live here, Colonel Edward Henry Cooper, initiated further changes, this time employing James Maitland Wardrop who gave the exterior its present heavily fortified appearance. The entrance was moved once more with the construction of a vast porte – cochère (with billiard room directly above). Inside, a baronial stone staircase leads up to the reception rooms and here a second Imperial staircase in oak, lit by a great arched window filled with heraldic stained glass with portraits of members of the Cooper family and monarchs, leads to a top-lit gallery off which open the main bedrooms. Francis Johnston’s former entrance was turned into a long gallery divided by pairs of marble Ionic columns.





The history of Markree Castle for much of the last century was one of seemingly irreversible decline, personified by the fact that in 1988 it was used for the filming of a television series based on J.G. Farrell’s novel Troubles, and that same year its staircase hall featured on the cover of Vanishing Country Houses of Ireland. Until the last quarter of the 19th century, the castle had stood at the centre of an estate running to more than 42,000 acres, but most of this was sold by Bryan Cooper under the new land acts after he inherited the property from his grandfather in 1902. He then spent much of his time in Dublin, especially in later years so that Markree became only occupied during the summer months. When Bryan Cooper died in 1930, his eldest son Edward Francis Patrick Cooper was left the place; he and his family lived there until 1952 when it became impossible for them to maintain such a large house. As a result, many of the original contents were auctioned, and the Coopers moved into the old service wing, leaving the rest of the building empty. In the early 1980s, Markree was passed to the next generation but the eldest son, Edward, did not wish to live in the house, and eventually it was taken over by his younger brother Charles who had trained in hotel management and therefore decided to turn the castle, by now in very bad condition, into an hotel. He and his wife Mary embarked on a programme of restoration and ran the business until 2014 when, wishing to retire, they put Markree Castle on the market. The following year it was bought by the Corscadden family who already owned a number of other hotels located in historic properties and, after further refurbishment, the castle has been open to guests ever since.

A Familiar Sight



A familiar sight across the country: an abandoned and roofless Church of Ireland church. This one is in the parish of Kilfree, County Sligo and, according to the reliable Samuel Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of Ireland of 1837, was ‘erected in 1826, for which the late Board of First Fruits granted a loan of £600.’ It appears to have closed for services in the 1950s, but as so often the surrounding graveyard remains in use.


Worth Emulating


Eighteen years ago this week, the contents of Lissadell, County Sligo were sold at auction by Christie’s. The house was once family home to Constance Gore-Booth (otherwise known as Countess Markievicz), a key participants in the Easter Rising, the first woman to be elected to the Westminster Parliament (although she declined to take her seat there), and subsequently the first woman in the world to hold a cabinet position, an intimate of W.B. Yeats and many other notable figures in Ireland’s cultural revolution at the start of the last century. Understandably, therefore, news that both the building and its contents were to be sold met with widespread dismay, and hopes were expressed that the state might intervene to save this part of the national heritage. However, as so often before and since, no such intervention occurred and the sale took place. Thankfully, the new owners of the Lissadell estate succeeded in buying back at least some of the items offered at auction, and they remain in the house, but much was lost, unlikely ever to return. 







Lissadell is a large and somewhat austere building, designed by the architect Francis Goodwin in 1831 for Sir Robert Gore-Booth, whose family had lived in the area since the early 17th century. There had been an earlier residence closer to the Atlantic shoreline, but this was demolished when the new house was built. Lissadell’s pared-back Greek-Revival style reflects not just its owner’s taste, but also his budget: he may well have preferred something more opulent but lacked the necessary funds. When Goodwin published Domestic Architecture (1833-4) he featured Lissadell and noted that the house ‘has been erected for less than the estimate, by a considerable sum.’ In a footnote to the text, he observed how, ‘in altering the original designs, with a view of reducing the expense to a comparatively moderate sum, considering the extent and accommodation of the building, the author has been much indebted to the judicious hints of Sir R. G. Booth himself.’ In other words, the client told his architect to cut back on costs. Of two storeys over basement, Lissadell’s exterior is constructed in crisp Ballysadare limestone, with each side of the house different, although both those facing east and west have projecting bays at either end. What might be described as the garden front has a three-bay full-height bow, topped with a parapet that rises above those on either side, while the entrance front is notable for a towering three bay projection that serves as a porte-cochère. The interior of the building is decorated in what might be described as an early example of minimalism, beginning with the double-height entrance hall with Doric columns on the ground floor and Ionic columns above, accessed via an Imperial staircase in Kilkenny marble. A similarly substantial, apse-ended and top-lit gallery likewise exudes a sense of severe grandiosity,  with Doric pilasters on one side and Ionic columns on the other. Sir Robert’s desire to save money where possible led him to introduce what was then something of a technological innovation: gas lighting. A local report from the 1830s recorded that this saved the house’s owner £60 or £70 annually. Seven of these lacquered brass gasoliers made for Lissadell were almost lost when the 2003 sale took place, but thanks to legal action taken by An Taisce (which argued the items were furniture and fittings integral to the building) they remain in situ, together with the gallery’s George III chamber organ which was also originally due to be auctioned. 







One of the key losses from Lissadell at the time of the November 2003 sale was the collection of furniture specifically commissioned by Sir Robert for his new residence. Dating from the 1830s, these pieces were representative of taste in Ireland at the time and were believed to have been made by the successful Dublin firm of Williams & Gibton. Until the auction, Lissadell was the only house in Ireland to retain its original furniture by this company, so their dispersal was much to be regretted. Their importance can be gauged by the fact that most of the lots exceeded their estimates: a rosewood writing table, for example, which was expected to make €8,000-€10,000, fetched €19,000. In the dining room, a set of 17 mahogany chairs (€12,000-€18,000) fetched €22,000 and the dining table itself (€30,000-€50,000) went for €65,000. Bidding against other potential purchasers, Lissadell’s new owners managed to buy some pieces, such as a pair of handsome mahogany Grecian-style bookcases clearly inspired by the work of Thomas Hope and, again in the dining room, a sturdy mahogany sideboard. But many of the contents, first installed some 170 years earlier, now left for good and not just the Williams & Gibton furniture. There were, for example, a number of fine 17th century Italian baroque paintings, many in spectacular gilt frames, which had been acquired for the rooms by Sir Robert Gore-Booth. And then there were all the miscellaneous objects that build up in any house over generations, from sets of copper jelly moulds to discarded furnishings such as old curtains. These, as much as the more valuable pieces, are what tell the history of a building, and when they are gone, part of that history disappears forever. Thankfully, since acquiring Lissadell, the present owners have undertaken a huge amount of work, not only to restore the house but also to reinstate its distinctive character. They have done so using their own financial resources, and despite setbacks that might have deterred anyone else. In 2008, for example, Sligo County Council embarked on a court case over public rights of way across the estate, a case which the local authority ultimately lost but only after spending millions of euro from the public purse. There is, of course, more to be done but Lissadell today is a model of private enterprise in the field of Ireland’s cultural heritage, one that one must hope some of the country’s more wealthy citizens might care to emulate. 

A Complex History


‘Ballymote Castle – Just near the town of that name is 150 feet square, sixty high, and flanked and quoined by towers six feet broad in the wall, with a strong rampart and parapet all around. The front is very regular, and the whole of this ruin equally handsome and strong.
It was built in the year 1300 by Richard de Bourg, second Earl of Ulster. This castle, and that of Sligo, being in the hands of the Irish, made a considerable stand against the reduction of that part of the country. But Ireton, having joined with Sir Charles Coote, retook them in 1652.’
From Statistical Survey of the County of Sligo by James M’Parlan, 1802. 





As M’Parlan noted more than 200 years ago, Ballymote Castle, County Sligo was originally built in 1300 by Richard de Burgh, second Earl of Ulster, often called the Red Earl, a great-grandson of the Anglo-Norman knight, William de Burgh who had arrived in Ireland in 1185 and before his death had already taken the title ‘Lord of Connacht.’ Like his forebear, the second earl was ambitious and combative, and often in opposition to his fellow Norman lords, not least John FitzThomas, first Earl of Kildare. However, his pugnaciousness failed him in 1315 following the invasion of Ulster by Edward Bruce. The latter’s brother, Robert the Bruce, King of Scotland, was married to de Burgh’s daughter Elizabeth (the couple’s son would become David II of Scotland) but that did not stop him attacking the earl and defeating him in battle in County Antrim (Edward Bruce would in turn be defeated and killed three years later at the Battle of Faughart).  





It was during the upheaval that followed his defeat by Bruce’s army that the earl lost his recently-built castle in Ballymote, which was then seized by the O’Connor clan. Thereafter no one was able to hold onto it for very long. Just twenty years later the O’Connors lost the castle to the MacDermots who would, in turn lose it to the MacDonaghs in 1381.  For the next two centuries, ownership of the castle passed back and forth between these local families. Finally in 1577 it fell to the English. However, Richard Bingham, appointed Governor of Connacht, sacked the place in 1584, and a few years later it was attacked and burnt by an alliance of local families, the O’Connors, O’Hartes and O’Dowds. Next the MacDonaghs regained control of the site, but soon after sold it to the O’Donnells, supposedly for £400 and 300 cattle. Following the defeat of Red Hugh O’Donnell at the Battle of Kinsale (1601), the castle once again passed into English hands. In 1610 it was granted by the crown to Sir William Taaffe whose son John was created Baron of Ballymote in 1628. But during the Confederate Wars it was once more subject to attack and in 1652 was taken by General Ireton. Finally, in the Williamite Wars, the castle was once again taken by the MacDonaghs before being surrendered to Arthur Forbes, Viscount Granard in 1690. Given such a history, it is remarkable that much of the building still stood, but at that point Ballymote Castle was finally abandoned, its moat filled in and the place left to become the ruin that can be seen today. 

When History Repeats Itself


At some date in the future, research will probably be undertaken into the consequences of the near-wholesale disappearance of Roman Catholic religious orders from Ireland during the late 20th/early 21st centuries. For more than 100 years, they had been a dominant presence across the country, every town of any consequence having at least one, more often several, large building complexes occupied by various orders who would have been responsible for the area’s education and, as we have discovered of late, other less savoury activities. By and large, the persons responsible for running those institutions have disappeared, primarily due to the fact that since the 1970s fewer and fewer individuals have been prepared to become nuns or monks and so forth. But the buildings remain, still dominating many a neighbourhood, even though their intended residents have departed. Sometimes the properties have found a new purpose, more often they now stand empty, their decaying presence serving as testament to an authority that once erroneously believed itself invincible. Like Shelley’s Ozymandias, they proclaim ‘Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair.’ So, aside from the physical manifestations, what have been the consequences of this ebbing of a once-powerful tide? What effect has it, will it have, on the national psyche? That remains to be investigated, but when such work begins, perhaps those responsible might like to consider how we have been here before, that we went through a similar experience back in the second half of the 16th century. 





Dedicated to the Virgin Mary, Ballindoon Priory, County Sligo was a late-comer to the company of Ireland’s religious houses. A Dominican foundation, it was established on the banks of Lough Arrow in 1507 by one Thomas O’Farrell under the patronage of the McDonaghs, who were then the most powerful family in the area. The interior of the church is dominated by a remarkable two-storey, triple-vaulted archway. The arches on the ground floor are all the same height but only the centre one provides access from nave to chancel, those on either side probably once holding altars (that to the south has since been blocked). The central arch above is much higher than its neighbours and may once have contained a cross or crucifix although it also has a hole in the ceiling to allow the suspension of a bell rope from further up the tower. This floor, effectively a gallery, is lit by exceptionally tall, narrow windows set into the north and south walls. Reached by an unusual external staircase, the top of the tower is thought once to have contained accommodation for whoever lived on the site, since no domestic ranges were ever constructed around the church (the land to the immediate south of the church drops steeply down to the lakeshore). Both the east and west ends of the church have splendid traceried windows





Ballindoon Priory was almost the last such religious house to be established in Ireland, although Eóghan O’Rourke and his wife Margaret O’Brien founded a Franciscan friary at Creevelea, County Leitrim a year later, in 1508. At the time both these buildings were erected, it must have seemed as though little would change, that the Roman Catholic church would continue to have a dominant presence throughout the country, and its properties enjoy a secure future. Just a few decades later, Henry VIII proclaimed himself head of the church in his dominions, which included Ireland, and ordered the dissolution of all religious houses. One by one, they were closed down, their occupants sent away, their possessions confiscated and frequently granted or sold to supporters of the English crown. An entire way of life disappeared, leaving the Irish countryside littered with the decaying remains of what had once seemed an immutable authority. This must have been a unsettling experience for the entire population, who over the space of some 50 years witnessed the loss of the familiar and with it the sense of comforting security. Sound familiar? History has an uneasy way of repeating itself. 

A Familiar Tale



Anyone approaching Sligo town from the south cannot fail to see a large range of rock-faced limestone buildings rising to the immediate east. Erected in 1890-91, this was Summerhill College (or, more correctly, The College of the Immaculate Conception), a secondary school for boys designed by local architect Patrick Kilgallin on the instructions of then-Roman Catholic Bishop of Elphin, Lawrence Gillooly. Further additions to the site were made early in the last century and again in the 1930s. However, ten years ago a new school was built on an adjacent site and the old buildings offered for sale. In 2016, the Diocese of Elphin announced it had sold the property to a Liverpool-based company Eastview Limited for an undisclosed sum (believed to be in the region of €400,000). Nothing further happened until in April 2020 when Eastview sold the former school to another company, RIPL Strandhill Ltd for €1.6 million. However, it appears the agreement was never finalised and last April legal proceedings were initiated by lawyers acting on behalf of Eastview to ensure completion of the sale. At the same time, a fire broke out in the building, believed to have been started by arsonists and inflicting serious damage to the upper storeys. Meanwhile, the rest of the site is being left to deteriorate.


Help Urgently Needed II



In a wonderful location looking east across Lough Arrow, Ballindoon, County Sligo was originally called Kingsborough, thereby indicating it was built for a branch of the King family who some lived some 25 miles away at Rockingham, County Roscommon. The latter house was designed by John Nash and Ballindoon has sometimes also been attributed to him, but since it is believed to date from c.1820 perhaps it can only regarded as being in his style: by that date the architect was far too busy with royal commissions in London to have time for an Irish client. Essentially a lake-side villa, Ballindoon is a building of exceptional character, beginning with the immense pedimented Doric portico on the north-facing entrance front, its scale overwhelming the single bays on either side. Similarly the garden front is dominated by an enormous dome-topped bow, with a further series of engaged Doric columns around the ground floor. Unfortunately, like Hollybrook a few miles to the west (see previous entry), Ballindoon has stood empty for some years and is now suffering as a consequence, with what appears to be dry rot appearing on the upper floor: the insertion of uPVC windows throughout the house probably doesn’t help. Ballindoon was offered for sale with 80 acres three years ago, but remains unsold, and accordingly remains at risk.